Unfinished Business
by pennyandpearl
Summary: Orihime Inoue finds herself back in Hueco Mundo under new ownership. Rating T to M, with warnings.
1. Lost Dreams I

The Winter War had been over for well over a year. Soul Society had won. Aizen had escaped, heavily damaged, to unknown parts, and hadn't been a threat since. It should have been a prosperous time for many, even those who didn't know that their Living World had been saved.

In that time Orihime Inoue had accomplished much. Another year of school was gone, her grades carrying her into her last year of school with high marks and everything that pointed to her first year of university.

Except for the money. It wasn't much more than high school had been, but with her relatives' financial support dwindling as they incurred more expenses of their own due to their own obligations, there was less to send her way.

She'd also accomplished her dream of Ichigo Kurosaki. The War had brought them closer than she'd ever hoped for.

Maybe that wasn't entirely true, for Orihime had hoped and dreamed for a long time and with her very soul that he would one day be hers. And, he was.

He was. Her first, her dream, the pinnacle of five lifetimes' worth of praying and yearning. Sex with him was her first. She'd loved him for far too long to feel anything but ease with him, even if a bit of shyness remained.

That had been six months ago.

Most people would call it a fling, but Orihime Inoue called it much more. That's why it hurt so much and for so long when he ended it, claiming that whole _friends_ thing.

That was also why it hurt so much more when she found out about the good news as she entered the Candlelight Caterers shop through the back door to see Tomika already rolling dough and pressing it to make stuffed dumplings. Orihime flicked her hair into a ponytail at the small break area behind the work room of the mostly kitchen section of the shop, a first floor enterprise of the building that also housed a restaurant -- some of their business, on occasion -- and other small-time entrepreneurial efforts.

She tied on her orange and yellow apron and joined Tomika at the work table where the surface was scattered with half filled bowls, utensils, and a pile of flour. The middle-aged woman's hair was pulled severely from her face into a no-nonsense bun, her glasses dusted with flour around the rims.

She smiled at Orihime, making her eyes crease into nearly disappearing. "Good. You're early. Big order for upstairs," Tomika said, indicating the restaurant. "Extra people for a party of twenty. Start on the pork and ginger wontons."

Orihime nodded and immediately set about finding the bamboo steamers and ingredients. "I'm on summer break now," she said, smiling as the woman suddenly jerked her head up from her work, smiling even wider. "A whole five weeks."

"Ah, big plans with your friends?" Tomika asked leadingly, hoping for a no.

Orihime knew what she was really asking. "No," she said, making herself laugh. She ran water into a wok at the industrial size sink and set it on the stove's wok burner. "I'm all yours."

"Good."

Orihime sighed, blowing a stray strand of hair from her face that had already escaped the ponytail. Friends had become scarce since the War, each of what had once been a fiercely devoted pack dispersing into their own lives. Most notably had been Uryuu and his decision to give his Quincy livelihood a more focused attempt. She hadn't seen him outside of school much. She hadn't seen many of them outside of school. No one needed healing anymore with only a rare attack of Hollows in town.

"We got the order for the Kazuki Corporation," Tomika said, a smile lacing her voice. "Not the whole catering order, but the Western menu."

"Good. I know you wanted that so much, and no one does Western fare better than you," Orihime said, grunting as she wrestled the stack of bamboo steamers from an overhead shelf. The five high column didn't fall, but they did threaten to, wobbling over her in a bamboo tower of segments that reminded her of Zabimaru's extensions.

She almost laughed out loud. She hadn't seen Renji in months, even with the trickle of Hollows that found their way to Karakura Town. She hadn't seen much of any of the Soul Reapers since she'd moved to the other side of town. They knew she was there. Ichigo and Chad had helped her move.

"Oh, yes, our name is getting into the right circles," Tomika said, shaking her hands of excess dough flour. "Our niche."

Orihime nodded. "How many wontons?"

"Sixty."

Orihime went to the walk-in cooler and found the ingredients she needed, managing to balance three heads of cabbage and the ginger roots in one arm while collecting the remaining necessities in her other, using a hip to open the heavy cooler door.

" ... in a week, so we've got plenty of time," Tomika was saying as Orihime returned to the table, oblivious to her employee's absence. "It's mostly hors devours and two soups, but I think it could lead to more business from them if we do this right, Orihime."

She nodded, knowing after working with the caterer for four months that Tomika would repeat whatever it was that she'd said while Orihime was gone. She always did. Many times. She liked the way the woman said _we_ when referring to the business, as if she were a pivotal part of the small operation. "Kazuki?"

Tomika nodded, fingers nimbly working the dough. "Yes. Oh, and we got another special event, but it's much smaller. He's a doctor, so the menu is good, and a recommendation from a professional would do us well."

Orihime nodded, breaking apart the heads of cabbage as she gave the wok's simmering water a quick glance. "Is it a Western menu, too?"

Tomika brushed the dark hairline of the small beads of sweat that started in the hot kitchen despite the two fans against opposite walls. "Oh, no. Traditional. An engagement party. Well, a pre-engagement dinner, actually. I guess she's from a very traditional family and they'll have the larger celebration at her brother's estate." She made an envious sigh. "_Estate_, Orihime. Much money there, I suspect."

Orihime separated the cabbage leaves, nodding as she listened. "There aren't too many families that prefer the large traditional gatherings any more."

The woman turned to her, chuckling lowly. "News just for you, dear," she said, switching the topic into another direction without warning, as usual. "I'm putting your crab, carrot, and chili dumplings on our main menu."

Orihime's mouth dropped open, eyes gaping at the woman's girlish giggle. Her hands stilled on the cabbage leaves. "To stay? _My_ crab dumplings?"

Tomika nodded, a rift of laughter erupting from her. "You should see your face, Orihime. So round right now."

Orihime snapped her mouth shut only to make a big smile. The crab, carrot, and spicy chili filled dough pouches were her own creation, an invention that Tomika encouraged her to create. "Oh, thank you, Tomika-san! Oh, I could hug you!"

"Ah, not with a knife in your hands, dear," the woman said, nodding at the small knife Orihime was using to cut the thick rib from the cabbage leaves. "Thank me another time. Water Lily House liked them so much they ordered two hundred for this weekend. You're not busy, I hope."

"Oh, no, no." Orihime looked down past her smile at the cabbage leaves. Her own recipe invention on the main menu was more than she could have hoped for. They liked it. People actually liked her creation. And Tomika liked it enough to give it a permanent home on the listings. "Thank you for thinking they were good."

"Everyone thinks they're good. Very good idea."

Orihime reached for the ginger and a grater, then pulled a shallow dish closer to her cutting board.

"Kurosaki-san ordered them, too," the woman said, patting at a circle of dough that had gotten a fold at one edge. "Not a lot, as it's a small private gathering, but he said they sounded tasty."

Orihime's hand had frozen at the name, her bones refusing to move as if petrified. She blinked several times, the older woman's words replaying slowly through her mind.

Tomika continued. "We'll make our cucumber boats with the nori sails and water chestnut soup. Our very best, as Kurosaki-san is a physician, and our reputation is at stake."

Orihime's breathing had nearly stopped, and her lungs began to ache, making her realize she needed air. She swallowed deliberately. "You spoke with him recently?"

Tomika nodded. "Two days ago. Nice boy, his oldest son is. His only son, I think. I didn't meet him, but Isshin Kurosaki spoke so highly of him. Of her, too. He didn't mention her name, but she must be a very traditional girl."

The woman spoke on, her voice pushing the lump stuck in Orihime's throat higher until it was pressing painfully against her vocal chords. The room was suddenly dizzyingly hot, the wok on the stove bubbling water into steam, the fans failing at their job. She shook her head, a nauseating feeling threatening to take her senses.

Orihime cleared her throat, but the lump remained.

Ichigo was getting engaged? To Rukia?

She braced her palms on the table, unknowingly gripping the blade of the small paring knife until the cut was sharp in her hand. She looked down at the small trickle of red that seeped to the table, no more than a drop, but it felt like it had cut through her life line.

Mechanically Orihime went to the sink and rinsed her hand with cold water. She watched the faint red dilute down the drain with the water, the knife dropping into the sink. She closed her eyes, but then immediately opened them, afraid she'd pass out.

He wasn't ready to be more than friends with her, but plenty willing to commit himself to Rukia before he was even out of school.

Words formed at her lips, harsh words that Orihime Inoue had never uttered before, even during her captivity in Hueco Mundo.

" ... for another three weeks," Tomika was saying, her voice seeming to come in waves to Orihime at the sink. "Plenty of time for us."

"Oh, yes," Orihime heard herself say. "Dr. Kurosaki is so thoughtful."

"Oh, yes. What a nice father-in-law he'll make."

Orihime was tempted to pick up the paring knife and draw it quickly across her wrist in wicked gashes, but it wasn't a serious thought. It never was. She'd just end up in Soul Society after her death, and there would be Ichigo and everyone she knew, wondering what happened to her in the kitchen that brought on her early demise.

She wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, but more than that she wanted to scream and sleep for the next month. She took a deep breath, so deep it hurt, and turned back to the work table where Tomika was still speaking.

When there was a pause in her employer's gush of compliments, Orihime added numbly, "They'll be a lovely couple, I'm sure."

* * *

The night was sweltering hot for the early summer, promising a long unrelenting vacation from school for Orihime. She lay in her bed in the thick dark, the oscillating fan on her dresser doing little to alleviate the high temperature that seemed to push against her chest.

Sounds from the street outside drifted in from the open windows, bringing noise of the night traffic of the thoroughfare. She pulled down her long tank top, tempted to strip it off in an attempt at coolness and sleep in only her panties, but she didn't. A sense of decency pervaded her even in the isolation of her own apartment.

And she _was_ alone. Farther away from anyone and everyone she knew. She'd taken a different apartment a few months ago, not because of the breakup with Ichigo, but because it was cheaper than her older nicer apartment, helping her generous relatives that lived in Tokyo who supported her.

They'd been against it, but Orihime insisted. Her job helped offset some of their expenses from her. It wasn't much, but she hoped to repay them her last year of school tuition.

She smoothed a hand down the mint green tank top, sighing in the muggy night, thoughts of the day invading her as they usually did, this time with more force and sting than nearly ever before. She drew up one knee and pushed a hand through her damp hair, the soft auburn tresses not drying after her tepid shower in the damp heat of the day before she'd went to bed three hours ago.

She'd laid there awake ever since. The tears threatened but didn't fall and she didn't know why. She thought they should. Maybe if they did the knot in her stomach would stop tying tauter and tauter until she felt like vomiting.

She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. She was still getting used to her new place. It was smaller, the same distance from school, nearly the same distance -- right down to the meter -- from the Kurosaki Clinic. She'd counted the steps. A little farther away from Tatsuki's house, but not by much.

It was colder in the winter, she'd noticed that early spring, being a corner unit. It gave her two windows in her bedroom, the view out either not as nice as her old apartment, but a decent cross-draft when there was a breeze, unlike the night now pushing on her. The two windows allowed the street lights to cast odd shadows on her walls, depending on where the moon was and time of night. Strange and bizarre shapes sometimes, contorted by how many neighbors had antennas up and who had left their laundry out overnight. Like now.

Shadows stretched across the wall, dark outlines at the window where a small bench was tucked beneath it, negligible moonlight cast from the window kitty-corner at the other wall. She looked there, the opaque night broken by clouds, making the shapes muddled in the scant moonlight.

She saw shapes, as she always did, sometimes human in shape, sometimes absurd things like owls -- especially when the neighbor left laundry out -- sometimes shinigami. Once it had been Zaraki's pointy form, once she could have sworn it was Nnoitra's narrow silhouette, but she knew it was just the play of light. She looked to the shape now thrown where she knew the bench to be. No one, not really, just a silhouette of nothing.

She pulled her thoughts from the day and tried to make a recognizable shape of the dark outlines. She let her mind go, the tightness in her head hurting too much to continue thinking of him.

Ichigo. Rukia.

After a moment of frowning and making a committed effort to push aside thoughts of Ichigo and his impending engagement that Candlelight Catering was serving, a form began to take shape.

She caught her breath at the outline presented to her. She knew it, hadn't seen it in over a year, lastly when Grimmjow had lay dying in the sands of Hueco Mundo's desert.

But now he was seated at her window, on the small bench, his broad shoulders shadowed heavily, his face obscure, but his hair without color outlined in the filtered moonlight. It was an eerie likeness, and she remained perfectly still. Usually she would trace the shape with a finger as she tried to make a recognizable form out of it. This time she didn't. The likeness was too much, and she didn't feel like acting on such a frivolous pasttime. She wondered who had the antennas out this time to create such a likeness.

The air was still and heavy, seeming to press on her chest with intent, making breathing harder in the humid room. She closed her eyes and turned her head back on the pillow, letting her bent knee rest against the wall to the side of the bed, sighing.

Damn Ichigo.


	2. Lost Dreams II

Orihime spent early Saturday morning until just after three o'clock making her crab dumplings for the Water Lily House order. Her hands were nearly numb from pinching the seams and handling the delicate bundles, carefully avoiding tearing the dough. She wasn't alone, as the two other girls who worked for Tomika were in for the weekend work.

They were about Orihime's age and lived in the same neighborhood, but attended a different school than she did. Their attendance was sporadic, usually on weekends. Tomika's somewhat silent business partner had been in, too, making arrangements for servers for the small garden party the Candlelight Caterer's were providing for that Sunday. Most times clients had or made arrangements for their own servers and wait staff, usually connected to a restaurant, but on occasion the Tomika was expected to provide them.

Orihime didn't like that aspect of the business. It was bad enough to be mistaken as a server when she was trying to balance a large platter of finger food to a serving table without a party guest flagging her down for a request. Only once had she actually served, and that had been less than pleasant, especially with the amount of saké flowing through the banquet room.

A giggle broke out from the opposite side of the work table as Orihime finished her work and slid the tray of dumplings onto the baker's rack where three others were already finished, awaiting steaming the next day.

She didn't look to Mai or Hisa as they shared a secret between them, their fingers making unnecessary creases in the rice pastries they were preparing.

Orihime didn't say anything as the girls whispered. She'd never gotten close to either girl, keeping her relationship with them more work than cordial. Besides, her shift was over, having started at just after seven o'clock that morning.

She left the small shop as it heated to sticky degrees for the afternoon, glad to be out of the kitchen before the steaming began in the hot day, but undecided what to do with the rest of her time.

She tightened the pink scrunchie at the back of her head, jerking the ponytail into a stricter arch. Maybe Tatsuki would be up for an ice cream binge, she thought. It was worth a try and the trek halfway across Karakura to find out.

She turned to see behind her as she crossed the street three blocks later, a familiar reiatsu surging stronger. Since the War Ichigo had learned to rein in his spiritual powers -- in compliance with the guidelines Soul Society had demanded -- but she knew it was him, even in his _controlled_ mode.

"Hey, Orihime," he greeted, jogging to catch up with her as she saw him. He grinned, bringing a smile from her. "I just went by your place."

"Were you looking for me?" Her smile turned a little broken in light of what she'd recently learned.

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you." His longer strides shortened to match hers as they made their way among the meager sidewalk traffic in the hot afternoon.

"Oh?" She braced herself emotionally.

He nodded. "Yeah."

They walked for a few minutes, Orihime's yellow blouse dotted with flecks of orange carrot where the vegetables had gotten a bit out of control when she'd shredded them that morning.

They walked for another block, and she began to wonder if he'd lost interest in telling her whatever it was he was going to. She thought she knew already.

"You smell like hot peppers," he finally said, glimpsing her hands that were faintly tinted red at the fingertips.

"Oh, I was chopping chilies at work," she said, giggling, still enjoying his grin when he decided to make one, like now. "I wore gloves, but still got some of the color and smell on me."

He nodded, waiting until they'd passed the bulk of crowd that suddenly joined them in the next block. When it had thinned, he cleared his throat. "I'm going back to Soul Society next week for a while."

"Oh." She forced her voice to remain steady. "I haven't noticed too many Hollows lately." Her knees felt weak at her next words. "Is there a problem?"

"...No." Ichigo jammed both hands into his front pockets, a frown claiming his face.

She nodded, refusing to bite her lip nervously. "Has there been any sign of Aizen-sama?"

"No, nothing like that," he said.

She blew a strand of hair from her face, wishing against hope that he'd tell her news other than what she'd learned recently.

"I, uh, I'm having -- My Dad's putting on a small ... thing in a few weeks. At our place," he said, words trailing as he watched her turn her face to him, recognizing the softening in her hazel eyes. "For me and Rukia."

She knew it was coming, but the words -- especially coming from him -- cut deeper into her mind. "Oh. Yes, your announcement."

He stopped walking, face registering more annoyance than shock. "You _know_? How can you know? No one knows." His voice raised an octave. "I told him I wanted to tell you! Dammit, my own Dad is out to --"

"Your father didn't tell me," she said, pausing and turning to look at him as he remained transfixed on the sidewalk.

"He didn't?"

She shook her head as he resumed walking, falling into step beside him. "No. You're having the affair catered." The combination of words was wrong, but she couldn't think of a better way to say it at the moment. "I don't know if it's a dinner, but it's more than a lunch, and --"

"No, nothing like that. I think he's going to get a bunch of take-out from the noodle shop down the street," he said, missing her point.

"The noodle shop?" she frowned at the sparse crowd ahead of them. Had Tomika been wrong?

"Yeah, no big deal, Orihime."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, no, we haven't talked about it, but I told him it was just an unofficial engagement announcement. Just to make ..." he left off, the words catching up with him and their impact on her.

She sighed, keeping her eyes ahead of them. "I think it's being catered, Kurosaki-kun," she said, her voice lower. "We got an order for six to seven guests at the Kurosaki residence five weeks from now."

"You, you _did_? Your shop?" Ichigo's face was livid in purple, but she didn't look at him. "Orihime, are you sure?"

She nodded, crossing her arms in front of her. "My boss was so excited. A doctor. She said your father spoke very highly of you, and Rukia-chan."

"Now way in hell. _Your_ shop?"

If he was going to keep repeating it, she thought she would burst into flames. She didn't, the blood not quite boiling beneath her auburn hair, but simmering under the thick skull. "Yes. Congratulations, Kurosaki-kun."

"I'm sorry," he said after a long silence in which they'd walked an entire block. "I didn't know. I told him I wanted to invite you. To tell you," he added in a gentler tone. "I don't even know if you'll want to come, but I wish you ...well, I hope you do, Orihime."

She nodded, sighing as she let the heat flaming through her head out in a useless puff of exhale. "I guess I will," she said, lifting an eyebrow at his grin. "I have to work it."

The frown snapped back onto his face. "No, not like that, Orihime. I wanted you to be there as a guest, not as, as ... help."

Sour thoughts went through her head. When hadn't she been just the help? A healer for injuries, a pawn to be rescued, baggage that was necessary in case someone got wounded.

"You really didn't know it was us catering?" The neutrality of her tone surprised her. She didn't think she'd be able to manage such calmness.

"No, last I heard Dad and Yuzu were planning some grab-your-own buffet from the noodle shop." He sighed, eyeing the top of her head as she nodded. "Are you okay with this?"

She shrugged. "We've catered much larger events."

"Orihime ..."

His voice was low, kind, as it had been with her at other times, but she felt her defenses creep in despite the change.

She gave him a resigned smile, a lukewarm expression that had little behind it. "I hope you'll be happy, Kurosaki-kun. Really I do."

"You can tell me to go to hell, if you want to," he said.

She shrugged. "We've already been there. Hueco Mundo, remember?"

He chuckled, relieved she wasn't going to cry or do that fake cheery act she put on when she was hurting. He'd seen it a few times. More times than he knew, but he hadn't known it was fake then.

"Yeah, that whole shit was pretty bad."

She nodded in agreement.

"I'll still always be there for you."

"I know."

They walked the rest of the way back to her apartment in silence, where she asked him to come up, secretly hoping he wouldn't. He didn't, leaving her at her hall where the stairs met her floor.

** ** **

Orihime fought the tears over the next few hours, commending herself at her self-control, at how she'd set aside her past with Ichigo Kurosaki and was able to look to the future.

But by the time she got to the shower later that night, she wasn't feeling so strong.

She missed her old apartment with its bathtub. Now all she had was a shower, and it didn't provide the deep soaking experience she loved so much, with fragrant bubbles up to her chin and toes able to rest on the ceramic side of the basin.

A shower it was, the warm water able to wash her tears away just as well as a tub of bubbles. She leaned her shoulder to the cool tile shower wall and let the tears find their way down her cheeks with the water raining over her. She wasn't asking for fairness -- life was too stupid for anything like that -- but perhaps a little happiness thrown her way would be in line.

She sniffed, pushing her wet hair out of her face, hearing a pounding on the wall from the neighboring unit. Hot water was a premium in the building and she wasn't using _that_ much. It was summer; who wanted a hot shower anyway?

She didn't finish crying out every tear in the shower, and refused to shed any as she dried off on the small but thick rug before the sink. She didn't look at herself in the mirror, preferring not to see the puckered swelling at her eyes where her sobs had left telltale signs.

She scrubbed herself dry with the towel and got dressed in the green tank top and plum shorts she was sleeping in lately. When she flicked out the bathroom light she found her apartment darker than she thought it should be for the hour. Maybe she had used more hot water than she thought she had. The shower hadn't seemed that long.

She left the lights off and went to bed. The fan on her dresser offered more relief from the heat this time, mostly due to her skin still shower-damp. She lifted her hair and let it fall back behind her pillow, knowing she'd have to dry the pillowcase in the morning.

She really didn't care, at that moment.

She squeezed her eyes tight shut, forcing memories of Ichigo from her mind. It didn't work, never did.

She mouthed her name, that diminutive little shinigami that had swept Ichigo into her arms without as much as a kind word. Orihime sighed. She didn't know that. Not really. There must have been some kind words between Ichigo and Rukia.

One hand rested on her stomach, fingers splayed over the tank top, her eyes remaining shut. She knew her figure was more developed than most girls her age, and had been for several years. By the time the realization of that had caught up with her, Orihime had been fending off advances from boys and even a couple of girls for years. Of all the attention her shape could have gotten her, the attention she'd wanted most was drawn to a slender, sarcastic female who wasn't even alive.

She'd never used her body to try to gain Ichigo's favor, but he'd certainly enjoyed her shape when they had sex. Orihime knew that.

She scolded herself and opened her eyes in the dark room, not seeing the ceiling above her. She should be happy for her friends. Both Ichigo and Rukia were dear to her.

But happiness wouldn't come to her this time. She turned on her side, moving the sheets down farther on the mattress with her foot, arms curled to her side as she watched the shadows on the opposing wall. She didn't try to make anything out of the blocky shadow thrown near the window, allowing it to stay the large undetermined figure it was made of laundry lines and whatever else out the window blocking the moonlight, instead letting her gaze drift unfocused as her thoughts twisted into other directions.

The soft blowing of the fan didn't cover the sounds of street traffic outside, nor did it lessen the heat that began pushing on her as her skin dried. Within half an hour the muggy night was back on her.

Orihime's eyes remained closed until she fell into a troubled sleep, unaware of the Espada watching her from the small bench seat by the window.

* * *

**Authors' Note: Rating to raise in the next chapter.**


	3. Shadow Play I

The following chapter is rated M for sexual content.

* * *

The week turned overcast, soggy downpours of rain drenching everyone unfortunate enough to get caught in Karakura's sky's path during those few days. Orihime was one, several times.

Tatsuki had been worried about her. It required a long bout of sundaes at the ice cream shop midway between their residences, during which Orihime had relented to few details. It wasn't like her, Tatsuki knew. But her friend was insistent that she was fine. Just fine.

Orihime made herself believe it too.

Even as Orihime shoveled the thick fudge into her mouth from her second sundae the taste was lost to her. She didn't quite believe she was fine. But she kept telling herself that.

The rain was a comfort, always had been, the watery streams of drizzle that laced down her window a comfort that no one -- even Tatsuki -- could comprehend.

Kurosaki-kun hated the rain, and Orihime could understand why.

But she liked it. The gentle watery ribbons that found their way down her window pane trickling a path of their own desire. She had to close the window, but it made the room heat to nearly tropical degrees.

She watched the trails the rain left for a long time later that night in the dim moonlight. The bedroom had grown past hot, too hot, nearly suffocating her in the night, taking her breath when she tried to get a deep breath, making the green tank top suck against her chest.

She pushed the sheet down from her chest, the simple layer of cotton seeming too warm in the muggy night. Even the panties she wore begged to be discarded, but she resisted. She lay on her side and clutched the pillow case in a fist to her chin.

The shadows cast obscure against the opposite wall. Her fan was on the small bench near her bed, the mild attempt at coolness washing over her in moderate waves as it oscillated. She left it on rotating, not wanting to wake up in the morning with an ear ache.

She didn't try to make anything of the shadows against the wall, but they took form anyway. A very distinct form. She half raised to one elbow on the mattress, her senses sharpening as Grimmjow stepped from the darkness, a leering grin plastered on his face.

"Not how I expected a princess to live," he said, leaning his sword against the wall near the bench.

"Jaegerjaquez-san," she said barely audibly, sitting up in astonishment.

"No need for the formalities. We're going to get to know each other too well for those." He nodded, the movement caught by a distant flash of lightning. She glanced to the night stand where her hair pins were in the single drawer there.

"You so much as think about calling your little sprite friends and I'll crush them beyond even _your_ healing abilities, Orihime," he said, part of his grin falling.

She nodded, her throat dry.

He took off his shirt and dropped it beside the night stand, watching her scoot to the wall behind her, her knees pulled to her side.

Her eyes didn't leave his face, hand reaching for the sheet to her left. To her horror he removed his pants, leaving him totally naked before her.

She shook her head, the squeak in her breath the only sound she was able to make as she pulled the sheet closer.

Grimmjow's hand closed around the sheet and pushed it away from her, resting one knee along hers as he moved fully to the bed. "We're not going to need that," he said, drawing the sheet from her hand, bringing his other knee to her side so he was hovering over her.

Orihime pushed herself flat against the wall behind her, nearly suffocating from the presence exuding from him, seeming to take away what little air she had. She swallowed, her throat still dry. She shook her head as he touched her cheek, his hard fingers on her skin as she stared at the mask of bone inches from her face.

He nodded, eyes on hers as his fingers moved slowly down her face. "Say my name."

The breath rattled in her lungs as she tried to summon a response.

"Say it."

"Jaeger --"

"No."

Her eyes went to his hand as he turned the back of his fingers against her cheek. "Grimmjow."

"That's better." He grinned, angling his head to the side as he looked at the tank top snug against her body. "You're much the same, Orihime." His fingers went to her hair, touching her temple as her eyes stayed on his. He drew a strand of auburn hair through his fingers, feeling the softness to the very end where they fell over her chest. His hand turned palm up, fingers touching just under her breast, drawing out to the edge of her nipple beneath the shirt. "Your hair is longer."

She nodded, trying to force out other words, conscious only of the few inches between their faces. "What, what do you want?"

His smile widened, his hair touching the top of hers. "I'd think that would be fairly obvious. Even for you."

She shook her head, feeling a bout of dizziness as his leg settled closer to hers, his fingers cupping beneath her breast again.

He kissed her lips, a touch that brought no response from her. It didn't stop him from continuing, his lips moving to one side of her mouth.

Orihime raised a hand to push him away, but his hand trapped her wrist, his other hand clasping her left wrist to where his knee touched her side. She tried to shake her head, a movement difficult as his lips pressed to her chin, a long kiss that moved to her throat, trailing warmly along her neck.

"Grimmjow," she said, knowing she should be screaming, but able to manage little more than his name above a whisper. The bone of the mask brushed under her chin, its smoothness surprising her as his lips moved along her skin.

She pushed against his grip on her raised hand, but he only dropped her wrist to slide his hand beneath her shirt, fingers covering nearly her whole ribcage at one side. She braced her hand against his shoulder, unable to move him away even an inch.

She began to speak, but he kissed her again, this time more forcefully on her mouth, briefly before his lips again moved to her throat. She held her breath, his mouth warm on her flesh, gentler than she could have imagined, small movements that made her hand relax on his shoulder. His fingers drifted across her skin under her shirt, lifting the material until she put her hand on his.

His face turned to her, mouth covering hers, kissing more intently, bringing her cooperation this time in a timid response. He stopped, easing back slightly to see her eyes open slowly.

She could barely see him in the dark, his eyes seeming to glint in the filtered moonlight that found its way into the room. She knew he couldn't see her blush, but she wondered if he could feel the heat that had welled on her cheeks. He kissed her again, eyes open on hers. She closed her eyes, succumbing to the lips that pushed against hers.

She was aware of his hands lifting her shirt, his mouth moving from hers long enough to slip off the green material, the act galvanizing her. She moved her arms to cross before her, but his hands took her wrists again, lowering them to her sides as he kissed her muted objection. For a long moment he kissed her lips, alternating between slow touches and more aggressive movements along her chin and neck until she felt limp.

The rain grew in force outside, drowning out the soft whir of the fan, but Orihime was oblivious to the weather as Grimmjow lowered her to her back near the pillow. It was a sound that she usually liked, the change in raindrops, but she was only aware of the lips on hers, the hands that held her wrists to the mattress near her shoulders.

It wasn't a bruising hold, firm enough that she couldn't pull free, nor did she try, her fingers angling over his, her palms turned in toward her shoulders as he kissed her throat. His hair grazed her chin and she resisted the smile that wanted to form at her lips, a sigh taking its place.

She'd never been kissed so thoroughly, or for so long, her reservations slipping away until she felt the long hard erection rest against her inner thigh. Her hands balled into fists, eyes flinging open as his lips met hers. She didn't turn her head, finding herself staring back at him as his lips drew back so they were barely touching hers. His hand released her left wrist and went to her panties as his other arm worked under her back and pulled her close to his chest. A small shiver caught her spine as her breasts rested against him, his skin both warm and hard on hers as he pulled her panties off.

She put both hands to his shoulders, was going to put her arms around his neck, but his hands took her wrists again in the same hold as before when he let his weight push into the mattress. His knee moved her right leg to the side, allowing his length to push against her softly, a slow rubbing that barely tipped the sensitive surface inside her.

Her eyes closed against her will, hands curling as he moved in increasingly deeper thrusts against the smooth interior that she'd allowed only one other person access. One hand released her wrist, forearm braced on hers, his fingers gathering a handful of hair that lay to the side of her head. She let her left leg shift to their side, her foot hooking over his calf as he kissed her. This time his lips were harder on hers, seeming to take the breath from her until she was nearly gasping. The air was suddenly thick around her, the heat hanging on them as his kiss stopped, lips still pressed to hers as his hips pushed harder, thrusting fully into her.

A whimper escaped her, not of pain, more of the newness to the act she'd not experienced in months. He pulled back halfway and pushed again, setting them into a rocking motion, bringing her to short pants that breathed his name. His name as he'd told her to say it.

Her hips rose to his as his lips turned hungrily for hers, his breath hot on her cheek as a shared wave of pleasure washed over them both. Her legs wrapped around him as the swell started in her, every sense heightened by the vigorous pumping of who she knew should never be in her bed. It didn't matter at that moment, the low guttural sound from him urging her moans. Her forehead embedded against his collarbone as her insides clenched around him, the scent of her hair bringing his own response.

She stifled an outcry against his chest, the surreal exhilaration that surged through her releasing in a gasp as he moved faster, culminating in a final thrust. Her head dropped back to the mattress, eyes remaining closed at his hot panting breath at her neck. His grip on her wrists had slackened, but now they tightened again as he kissed her wet throat to her lips. She didn't hesitate in returning the touch.

She opened her eyes as his face withdrew, still close as his gaze fell over her flushed features. She looked to each of his eyes, then to the mask where the bone shone pale gray in the dark. He braced his arm against hers and let the fingers of that hand cover her eyes, his thumb moving softly against her cheek.

Orihime closed her eyes, unsure if it was what he wanted her to do. She felt his lips on hers again, and then he pulled out of her, bringing a muted moan from her. He sat back, his hand moving from her face to her breast, feeling her racing heartbeat. She looked at him, swallowing as he studied her.

She could see the outline of his powerful build, not much more than that, his hair without color in the dark, the Hollow hole in his torso only a void through which she could see moonlight shed on the wall. His fingers curled on her skin and for a fleeting moment she thought he would shove a fist through her chest, as she knew he liked doing to his enemies.

Instead he leaned forward and kissed just above her navel, the tattooed Six on his back unmistakable. She wished she'd had her arms around him when he was inside her. He looked back to her and kissed her lips quickly.

Then he was off the bed and getting dressed, seemingly quicker than Orihime thought anyone could get dressed. She knew she should reach for the sheet and pull it over herself, but she didn't, too exhausted and her body still burning hot from their contact.

"No more of this Jaegerjaquez-san nonsense, Orihime."

She nodded, her voice failing her, again.

He grabbed his sword from by the bench and gave her a final glimpse before disappearing.

She closed her eyes, heart still pounding as she tried to calm her breathing. It wasn't real, she told herself. It wasn't. None of it. Her fingers clutched the sheet beneath her hand.

It couldn't be real.


	4. Shadow Play II

The following chapter is rated M for sexual content.

* * *

Orihime did her best to forget the night before when she awoke the next morning. It wasn't real, simply strange dreams caused by the eerie shadows in her room from the rain and having consumed half a liter of cherry and walnut sweet bean paste ice cream with avocado and butter topping. She should have known the combination would give her nightmares.

But it wasn't a nightmare, not really.

Not an acceptable dream, either, she told herself as she dressed the next day. She decided to ignore the fact that her panties and tank top were on the floor when she awoke. She sheepishly collected them as she found her black pants and pink top for work.

She also ignored that she was a bit sore, too. Not much, but enough to know she'd been active. She tried to think of an excuse for it, but nothing came to mind. And she'd slept soundly, exhausted.

It was a very vivid dream, and maybe she'd acted accordingly on it. That's what she told herself. _But why Grimmjow?_ she wondered. She'd had little contact with him in Hueco Mundo, and what little there was was not something to fantasize about.

She shuddered. At least her imagination hadn't conjured up Nnoitra. There'd be no mistaking _that_ for anything but a nightmare of epic proportions.

She pulled on her pants, smoothing the waistband to the front zipper, frowning. She let the black material fold down to each side of the zipper, a finger running over her skin just above the panty line. She couldn't ignore or excuse away the small blue bruises on her hip bones. To either side of her abdomen were bluish points of impact.

They matched on each hip, barely visible marks that had been made during her dream, as she chose to label it. She bit her lower lip in puzzlement.

"The work table at the shop," she told herself aloud, zipping the closure and fastening the snap. "It's from leaning against the table at work. That's it."

* * *

Tomika was elbow deep in folding wontons when Orihime got to the catering shop an hour later that warm morning. She greeted Orihime with a brief hello and smile before launching into the day's hectic schedule that had suddenly increased with two large orders for a hostess club two blocks away.

It was an unscheduled party of businessmen looking to entertain foreign visiting clients in hopes of closing a deal, the best international hostesses reserved for the day and evening, the staff of the club stretched thin with the promise of a large bonus tip if all went well.

No one ever said what indicated _went well_ meant, but Orihime had her guesses. While many native Japanese businessmen preferred Western or foreign hostesses, visiting professionals from other countries often chose the traditional Japanese role of a geisha-style hostess for their lengthy stay at the bars.

Orihime generally didn't like delivering orders to the clubs, but the one located the few blocks away was one of the more reputable ones, and she felt more comfortable knowing Mai was going with her. There was a safety in packs.

"I'm going to the hot springs next weekend with my boyfriend's family," Mai said from across the table later that afternoon as the girls worked long into the day. "A whole weekend, and I've only met them two other times. I'm so nervous!"

"You'll be fine," Tomika said, taking a moment from her chopping at the counter where she'd been eavesdropping on their conversation of the last half hour. "Be nice and show your respect, and be agreeable. Show them you have high values for family and elders. Girls these days don't do enough of that. I blame television, with all their progressive ideas ..."

From there it had been the usual forty-five minute speech on their boss's view of the rampant downfall of the new generation of liberal Japanese young ladies. It was the same speech Tomika used for nearly every issue her employees brought up. Orihime and Mai listened obediently, smiling as Tomika punctuated her monologue every fifteen minutes with her standard _but you girls aren't that way_ that freed them from being included in said company.

Orihime let her mind drift off and on over the etiquette lesson, the hot kitchen making her sag in her apron, her feet beginning to ache after six hours of standing as the day wore on. Tomika's rant had changed to Tokyo baseball, of which her favorite team was the Giants. Orihime's eyes glazed over as her boss relayed the pitching statistics. Across the table Mai failed to suppress a yawn, nodding and making the correct mumbles whenever Tomika took a breath.

Orihime leaned to the table as she shredded the coconut meat over the work board. She could feel the edge of the table press to her hips, knowing the height of the work surface was too high to align with the faint bruises on her skin.

She frowned, alternately chiding herself and wondering at her imagination. What was wrong with her? Why such a fantastical -- and highly inappropriate -- imagination? Did she miss sex with Ichigo that much? Then why not dream of _him_?

The slab of coconut beneath her fingers zipped faster and faster along the grater, leaving a fragrant pile of white flakes as her mind churned through memories of the night.

She decided to attribute it to sexual frustration that manifested itself in a ridiculously imaginative dream. That was it. She'd been thinking about discarding her tank top at night ever since the heat wave broke over Karakura Town, and she'd simply acted on it.

It didn't answer her why she -- rather, her subliminal sleeping imagination -- had chosen Grimmjow, but that could well be the ice cream she'd had.

But it didn't explain the bruises.

Maybe they'd line up with the grommets on her shorts. That was probably it. She decided she wouldn't test the theory, wouldn't try to match up the bruises.

Leave her theory untested, so she could believe it.

Maybe it was catering the Kurosaki party that triggered such a reaction from her subconscious.

But could she even imagine that kind of detail? The only reference she had to first hand sex was with Ichigo, and she hadn't felt that way, not that way physically, with him, hadn't achieved that level of ... her mind hunted for the right word. When she found it she blushed brighter than the strawberries staring at her from the bowl in front of Mai.

She'd never thought about Grimmjow's hands except how strong his grip had been on her shirt in Hueco Mundo, or how large they were when he'd left a hole in Rukia. In her dream his touch was warm, unlike what she thought an Espada's would be. She felt a little dizzy with mortification when she realized her only reference points were Nnoitra's cold fingers and Ulquiorra's cool, hesitant touch the few times he'd made contact with her. She sometimes had wondered, since the War had ended, if Ulquiorra's fingers would have been warmer if she could have reached his extended hand at that last moment as he dissolved.

_That should prove it was just a dream,_ she thought, brow furrowing as she focused on her work. Why would she imagine Grimmjow as warm, even gentle at moments? _Proof of an overly active and rampantly wayward imagination_.

That was all it was.

She shook the grater free of coconut shreds and let her mind wander back to Mai's detailed account of her boyfriend's parents. Nice people.

It was nearing evening by the time she and Mai found themselves burdened with three flat boxes each stacked in their arms on their way to the hostess club. They went round the back as they had been told by Tomika, who was delivering another order across town in her van.

The alley delivery door was louder than the front entrance, the thumping music more for dancing than intimate conversation that the front of house kept. Mai shifted a tense look to Orihime as they approached the back door.

"I could never work at one of these," Mai said under her breath.

"Me neither," Orihime replied, shying from a man who appeared from around the corner of the building.

He gave her a big smile, leaning lazily to the brick siding, sweating from the night and alcohol coursing through his veins, his dark business suit rumpled and shirt hanging out, tie askew.

"Hi, girls," he said, chuckling, bending a little to see their figures beneath the boxes. "You should be at front of the house, not back here. Big commissions. Pretty smiles, big boobies. Lots of money."

Orihime didn't respond, not even with a smile, instead looking to the delivery door as Mai knocked on the screen with one hand from under the stack of boxes.

A pudgy man looked out at them, his apron stained with assorted fruity colors. He gave them a welcome smile and threw the door open. "Ah, good. We need this. You tell Tomika-san we'll send her payment tomorrow." He lifted the boxes from each of them in turn, knuckles inadvertently brushing Orihime's blouse.

She withdrew, nearly flinching at the accidental touch that brought back the sense of another hand beneath her breast.

"Sorry," he muttered, his smile dropping in what appeared to be genuine apology. He cleared his throat and made an awkward bow. "We'll settle with your boss lady tomorrow. Goodnight."

Then he disappeared back into the kitchen of the club.

Mai sighed, giving Orihime a puzzled look. "Did he feel you up?"

She shook her head. "No, just a bump. Nothing, really."

Mai nodded slowly. "Well, they _are_ hard to miss, Orihime."

She gave her a sour look as they turned back to take the alley around the building. From behind them the businessman followed, his gait unsteady as he waved at them.

"Going so soon? Come on, I'll put a word in to the head hostess," he said, belching loudly, one hand trying to tuck in his lopsided dress shirt at his pants waist. "I'll get you a job. Put a word in for you. I'll even make you my first request," he added with a leering nod. "Maybe my favorite. Lots of douhan dates, yes? Make more money."

Orihime and Mai hurried through the side alley that led to the sidewalk at the front of the building, but Orihime felt a hand close on her shoulder, a breath of stale saké on her neck as she was pushed to the wall.

A sharp pain smacked at the back of her head as her back met the bricks and the man leaned closer to her, eyes nearly shut with inebriation, but open enough to give her blouse an appreciative scrutiny.

"I'm talking to you," he said heavily, one hand at her temple on the wall as he toppled closer.

She turned her head away, face wrinkling from the stench on his words. "I'm late. I already have a job." She tried to slip to one side, but his hand caught her shoulder tighter, eyes moving over her chest.

"I'm not finished talking to you," he slurred. "I've got connections here. You know who I am? Big patron here. I'm making a big promotion. I'll have my own table now."

Orihime didn't know if he meant he'd given someone else a promotion or got one himself, nor did she care. She pushed his shoulder, which only bounced flaccidly, bringing a grin from him as he stepped closer. "Don't touch me," she said. "Let me leave."

"Get away from her, you creep," Mai warned, moving a few steps closer.

The man turned on her, wagging a finger. "You quiet. Just because you got no tits is no reason to be loud."

Orihime pushed him away, this time until he stumbled back and tripped over a crack in the pavement. She broke away and ran out of the alley, grabbing Mai's arm as she passed her.

"Come on. He's drunk," she said as they hurried away and turned the building corner. "Won't remember us in the morning."

They dashed onto the sidewalk where a meager trickle of people were passing, all oblivious to the skirmish in the alley. From behind them Orihime heard a guttural sound, a sucking and retching noise that made her nauseated.

"Ew," Mai said, tugging Orihime's arm as they hurried on. "You got away just in time. Warm saké vomit. Yuck."

There was a thud from the alley, but Orihime and Mai were already quickening their pace.

"Sick bastards," Mai mumbled as they dissolved into the sidewalk traffic. "All these businessmen are the same. A few hours of undivided attention from the pretty hostesses and they think every woman has to cater to their every whim. Disgusting."

Orihime nodded, wiping her blouse with her hands so that it was smoothed over her, relieved to finally be away from the polluted air of the drunken man. "At least we were together."

Mai nodded, giving her own chest a glimpse as they passed the other people on the sidewalk. "I got boobs," she said defensively as they hurried on. "Not extra like you do, but some. A little."

Orihime forced a giggle. "You want to go back and tell him?"

"Ugh. No."

** ** **

When Orihime got back to her small apartment later that night it was the same as always, dark and empty. Not quiet, with sounds from the dark streets coming in from every open window with a slight breeze, but still lonely.

_Maybe that's what it was_, she thought as she showered in the cool water, relishing in the refreshing temperature in the muggy bathroom. Loneliness. Maybe that's why he'd come to her.

She shook her head, sending water drops splattering into new directions beneath the shower stream. If Grimmjow was lonely there were surely other places to find amusement. Not with her.

Besides, he was dead. All the Espada were.

And to think that the events of the night before had logical meaning meant they were real, and she had spent her waking hours telling herself if was a dream.

Her finger moved over the faint blue spot on her left hip. It was nearly gone, and the matching one on her right hip had disappeared, or had seemed to in the dimmer light of the shower. She wasn't ready to admit it as more than a dream.

Despite that, she dried quickly after the shower and put on her clothes, this time adding another layer of protection in the form of a pair of bright blue terry shorts even as the heat of the night argued against the item of clothing. She towel dried her hair in front of the mirror, gingerly, as the spot at the back of her hair just at the rounder part of her skull was tender where it had struck the brick wall from the drunken man's shove.

It hadn't bled, but there was a small knot of swelling. She did a half-hearted attempt at combing her hair, and left the bathroom, switching out the light. The apartment was dark, and thus cooler, and Orihime decided against any ice cream and made for her bedroom.

It was only a few steps away from the bathroom, but she found herself sneaking up on it. What she expected -- as she was convinced the night before had been a dream -- she wasn't sure.

All that greeted her was her bed, the small bench and night stand, and the four drawer chest. Nothing else. She leaned against the doorframe and gave the room a better study, watching the shadows that spread across the floor and bed.

Everything was identifiable as un-Espada, and she breathed easier that her imagination had abandoned her.

For once she was glad.

But she had to wonder, if it was only her imagination, why was everything from the dream of such corporeal nature, why such detail? She crawled into bed and pulled the sheet up to her chest despite the heat of the room.

Silly dreams.

* * *

Her weekend was filled with wontons, dumplings, and fruits salads, leaving Orihime little time for imagination or life of her own. She'd passed on Tatsuki's invitation to try the new noodle shop on her side of town, but Orihime promised to make it up to her the next week. There had been more to her friend's insistent tone in the invitation, but Orihime was too busy for even an ice cream blitz.

Besides, she thought she knew what Tatsuki wanted to talk about. Ichigo had called the Candlelight Caterers on Sunday to confirm the number of people at his event, and Orihime had gotten to speak with him. He'd even asked to speak to her.

He made all the right amends, she figured, a contrite manner -- for him, which was still a little gruff and grouching -- but he meant well.

And intentions were all that mattered, Orihime had learned.

He'd made her promise to be there as a guest or to wiggle out of the job. He didn't want her there as help. She promised she'd do what she could. It was all she could promise.

"Renji will be there. He might need a little keeping in line," Ichigo had said, trying to make a joke.

Orihime had grimaced. "Sounds explosive, Kurosaki-kun," she'd said, turning the phone at the corner of the shop away from Tomika's view at the work table with Mai and Hisa. "Has there been any unusual Hollow activity?"

Ichigo's tone grew serious. "No. Any problems out that way?"

"Oh, no."

"Are you sure? Anything at all?"

She'd shaken her head, unable to elaborate on what ran through her mind. Ichigo couldn't do anything about her imagination. "All quiet here."

That had been it for the phone call. Ichigo's usual concern for her. And confirmation about his father's order for the catered event.

She thought that was what Tatsuki wanted in her invitation to the noodle shop later. A chance for venting and ranting before the Big Day.

Instead she took her frustrations out in pounding the almond meal to make almond paste on the work table in the kitchen at the catering shop. Tomika was proud of her intensity, and then a little worried as Orihime's efforts nearly turned the meal into powder.

After hundreds of dumplings, wontons, and three gallons of coconut fruit salad, Orihime was finished with the frenzied weekend, looking forward to her day off on Monday.

She shut the windows against the cooler breeze of the night late Sunday and against her better judgment in the sweltering heat for the late hour. She knew if Grimmjow wanted to come into her apartment a closed window wouldn't keep him out.

Nor would it keep out her imagination, which she still chose to prefer. There was no need to seal the room up like a tomb, so she lifted the pane back up with a grunt, admitting the welcome drift of breeze. The town traffic outside was quieter than usual, and two street lamps were out, lending less light than most other nights to her bedroom.

_Better for sleeping_, she thought, crawling into bed.

She lay there for a long time, eyes closed, no interest in the shadows that had nearly enveloped her bedroom this time for lack of streetlights, the only light from a cloudy moon.

She lay there and thought of nothing, working at thinking of nothing, feeling the heat that invaded her skin. After a few minutes of pushing thoughts from her mind, she found something pushing back, but this time it wasn't in her mind

She opened her eyes, letting them adjust to the thick darkness around her, and then looked to her fan as the oscillating breeze broke at the wrong time for the pattern she knew.

She sat up quickly, backing away as Grimmjow stood between the fan on the bench and her bed. She instinctively reached for the sheet at her side, but his hand was already there.

"Always so ready to be modest," he said with a chuckle, plucking the sheet from her fingers as he sat on the side of the mattress. "You look surprised, Orihime."

She nodded, swallowing difficultly as he pushed the sheet to her feet.

"Nothing to say?"

She watched as he took off his white shirt and dropped it to the side of the bed, her eyes on the motion, seeing his sword already leaned against the wall.

"I thought it wasn't real," she finally stammered.

A brief flash of surprise went over his face. "Why not?"

"I don't know why," she said, her voice failing any volume, so low she didn't think he'd hear her. "I don't know why it would be real."

"Is that so?"

She nodded, pulling away as he stood and removed his white pants, leaving his form darker in the ill lit room. He sat down again, looking to her feet, one hand closing about her left ankle.

"You doubt your senses?" he asked, letting his loose grip move up her leg, fingers opening at her calf to follow the curve of her skin.

"Sometimes," she said, her leg angling toward the other knee as his hand moved to the back of her thigh, eyes still on hers.

"Too much time among the spirit world," he said, eyes resting on the dip of her tank top at the center of her chest. "Maybe that's it."

She didn't answer, her concentration on his hand slipping beneath the back of her shorts to the roundness of her hip, fingers spreading wide over the top of her leg near the bottom of her panties. She meant to keep her eyes on his, but they didn't stay, instead dropping to his hand, then going to his chest, which was nearing her as he leaned closer.

"Do you remember what I told you last time?" he asked, his voice low, a rumble only inches from her lips.

She nodded, her breathing shallow, waiting.

"Say it."

"Grimmjow," she said, eyes on his.

"Again."

Her gaze fell to his mouth, her anticipation inching the frustration in herself further as she realized she was eager for the wrong reasons.

"Grimmjow."

He grinned, not his usual sneer, one that under other circumstances would have been termed charming.

She stopped breathing as his mouth closed on hers, lips pressing in a soft kiss that she returned despite the inner alarms sounding through her conscience. He kissed her for a long moment, his other hand moving to the small of her back to pull her closer, his entire forearm bracing her against his chest.

Her arms slipped around his waist, a movement that broke his kiss, letting her fall a few inches back as his sharp look at her made her arms still. He frowned, for a moment unmoving as she stared at him with sudden apprehension, his scowl making her hesitate. His head turned to one side, inhaling a deep breath at her cheek.

Orihime let her hands slide up his back, the smooth skin beneath her fingers warm and tightly muscled, both soft and hard at the same time, her fingertips pressing gently as he kissed her again, this time more forcefully as her arms drew him nearer.

She wasn't fully aware of when he laid her onto her back, his hand embedded in her hair, large handfuls in his fingers pulling the soft tendrils until it was a wild array on the mattress beneath them. His hand rested briefly at the spot where a bump had been a few days ago from her encounter with the drunken man, but didn't pause for more than a few seconds.

She didn't protest his undressing of her this time, taking the few articles of clothing from her body in fluid movements with her cooperation as he settled on top her heavily. She didn't resist his knee moving her legs aside or his weight covering her abdomen and chest or the hard length against her inner thigh. Her expectation of his visit rose anew as his lips on her throat and neck made her heartbeat quicken until she could hear the rise in tempo in her ears.

She'd brought one hand under his arm, arching up his back to the hair behind his ear as his lips moved to her mouth, the blue locks softer than she thought they'd be, when he suddenly snatched her hand in his and lowered it abruptly, bringing a small outcry from her.

"Get your hand down," he snapped, eyes hardening on hers in the muted light, their unmistakable glint flashing like steel.

She nodded, swallowing quickly, searching for the proper apology but for exactly _what_ she didn't know.

Before she could find the words he turned her hand to look at it, opening the fingers from the palm with his thumb, bringing it to his face. He took a deep sniff of the palm, looking back to her, smelling her neck, below her ear.

His thumb pressed into her palm, making her fingers curl. "Your fingers smell different."

For a fleeting moment she wanted to laugh aloud, an inappropriate giggle that she didn't let surface. She nodded, smiling a little, watching a grin come to his face. "I was cutting up fruit. Coconut and kiwi."

He nodded, moving to her lips again, releasing her hand to let his arm slide beneath her back and pull her whole body closer.

She didn't know if it was the Arrancar in him or simply Grimmjow, but he knew what he was doing when he pushed into her, rhythmic strokes that pulled her own responses in increasingly strong peaks as he rocked her. And she liked it.

Her reservations from the first time had all but disappeared when he moved deep into her, no hesitation in her as she followed his movements, her arms tight around him at his back, his shoulders.

Orihime wasn't sure if her eyes were shut or if the night was too dark to see as he brought her to the height of sensation, a wave of pleasure gripping her tightly, and kept her there with slower movements deep inside her. She knew the moan against his shoulder was from her own voice, forced from her lungs as he panted into her damp hair.

When her final climax broke she was limp and drained, every ounce of energy sapped from her entire body. Her arms loosened on his back, remaining around him as he lay on her, his breath hot at her temple as her hands drew slowly down his shoulder to his side.

He picked his face from her cheek and she looked at the teeth of the bone mask as he hovered close, eyes mere inches from hers. He kissed her lips slowly, watching her eyes close at the touch, feeling her eyelashes on his temple.

He pulled out of her, her soft sigh against his neck as he smelled her hair once more. He braced himself on his arms to either side of her head, studying her flushed face as his breath regulated to a slower pace, watching her mouth move as she licked her lips. He let the edge of one thumb draw across the bottom of her chin along her jaw line, feeling her heartbeat thump against his chest.

"Don't go willingly, Orihime," he said, his tone devoid of any emotion.

She blinked in confusion, slowly shaking her head.

"Not without a fight."

Then he moved off her and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching for his pants to one side of it.

She sighed despite her racing heart, her skin still hot and pulsing. She turned her legs to one side and sat up, kneeling behind him, watching as he stood and dressed.

"I don't know what you mean," she said, eyes traveling over his back as he shrugged on the white shirt.

"I've never seen you fight back about anything, not even in your own bed," he said. There was no ridicule or judgment in his tone, but his words held enough impact. "You should learn to fight back."

"Against you?" The words broke as she said them. _Is that what he wanted?_ she thought. _More of a conquest?_

He grabbed his sword, running one hand through his hair as he watched her fingers clench nervously on her knees, her breasts appearing pale globes at her chest beneath her tangled hair that shone like honey in the limited moonlight peeking through one window. For a moment he returned her rapt attention, his expression telling her nothing, the glimpse of emotion she'd seen beneath his Espada mask only moments ago now gone.

He considered kissing her, the soft lips that had ceased to tremble from fear when he neared them, tempted to taste the strange salt on her skin just below her throat when she whispered his name.

Instead he turned his back and disappeared.

Orihime flinched.

She didn't feel anything, not when he appeared, when he left. Had her spiritual senses dulled?

Or had Grimmjow developed something she couldn't detect?

She had no one to ask about it. She gathered the sheet close to her chest, bundling it in her arms in an attempt at consolation.

She didn't want to fight him. Maybe he hadn't meant a real fight. Maybe he meant she was too passive, too --

Why did she care if she pleased him or not in bed? She shouldn't care, shouldn't even allow him anywhere near her.

She felt more like crying than she had since she'd learned of Ichigo's engagement plans.

She didn't want to care what Grimmjow thought of her.

And she hated that she did.


	5. Dreamer Awake

Orihime attempted to forget Grimmjow's visit by immersing herself in work the next day, and the next day. She refused to think about him, of what he'd said to her, of how he touched her and how it made her feel.

None of it made sense -- even when she tried not to think about it. She busied herself instead with wontons and dumplings and the postponed trip to the ice cream shop with Tatsuki.

The parlor was packed when they got there, the day hot and unrelenting as the crowd packed into the limited seating at the small round tables. Orihime and Tatsuki found themselves jammed at a corner where the table beside theirs had taken the spare chairs.

"... even with a pool," Tatsuki was saying as they settled with their frozen treats. "You'll have to come over and swim. She won't mind. It's for two whole weeks."

Orihime's mind had skipped back to her self-banned thoughts and she had to drag her attention to her friend's topic. "That sounds good, Tatsuki. House-sitting for someone with a swimming pool is perfect in the summer. You'll be pickled for a week."

Tatsuki was leaned over her hot fudge sundae, long spoon chasing a chopped peanut through the swirled whipped cream. "It's no fun alone. Too bad you'll be working so much. We could both get pickled."

Orihime giggled, loading her spoon with a mound of ice cream, fudge, and caramel topping. "I always get so sleepy in the sun."

"Me, too." Tatsuki sighed. "Maybe you could sleep over. That would give you more time for the water."

Orihime nodded, her mouth full of cold dessert, losing focus on Tatsuki's plans for the pool as her gums numbed with ice cream. She didn't want to fight Grimmjow, not in _any_ manner. She couldn't win. Few had.

But if he wanted some resistance to sex, he'd get it, one way or another. If she didn't put up some sort of fight he might get mad, and she didn't want that. If she refused him, he might get mad, and then he'd get the fight, and she'd probably get raped.

She shuddered, not at the coldness of the treat before her but at the idea of denying Grimmjow. He hadn't had to rape her; she'd willingly cooperated. Maybe too easily for his plans.

Forcing himself to her didn't seem to be in his plans, either, she had decided. His actions weren't those of purely selfish motivations. He'd actually seemed to want her cooperation, her mutual desire, maybe even her satisfaction.

Maybe now he wanted something different.

Her spoon toyed with the ice cream, making the white of the vanilla darken with fudge as she mixed it.

She frowned. He'd seen her fight back in the past, even against him. It hadn't been for herself; only for Ichigo, refusing to heal her friend's injuries so Grimmjow could have the fair fight he wanted.

She'd done it, but at Ichigo's request.

Maybe Grimmjow was referring to fighting back for herself. It didn't matter. She sighed. She was beginning to think she'd allowed something to start she would regret wanting to continue. She didn't want to put up any fight against Grimmjow, didn't even want to have him stop visiting her.

The thought made her cheeks flame red despite the large bite of sundae she'd just taken. She never thought any real enjoyment could come from sex without an emotional commitment to her partner. Surely the physicality wasn't enough.

Tatsuki was laughing at her. "Geez, 'Hime, your face is redder than the cherry you drowned in chocolate sauce."

Orihime swallowed quickly, burying her thoughts under a thick layer of embarrassment, which was deep at the moment. "You said you're going?"

Tatsuki didn't need any more of a hint than that. She nodded, sighing. "He's a friend, and you shouldn't go by yourself." The back of her chair was nudged by the other table, a laugh breaking out from the group of six people. "Try to get out of working it. Ichigo doesn't want you to serve."

Orihime nodded, eyes darting to the clock shaped like an ice cream scoop on the wall. "I've got to get going, Tatsuki." She shoveled the last three bites into her mouth, the sweet cold pleasantly deadening her cheeks. "I've got a short shift today, but a very early one tomorrow."

Tatsuki groaned, frowning over her nearly finished dessert. "You'll come by for swimming afterwards tomorrow?"

Orihime nodded, the cold impacting her head as she swallowed the ice cream. "I promise," she said, voice muffled. "We'll spend hours in the water."

Tatsuki grinned at her. "And get pruny."

Orihime nodded, smiling as they stood up. "All pruny."

* * *

Orihime's thoughts were still on swimming pools and fudge sundaes -- anything but Ichigo's impending engagement or Grimmjow's visits -- when she got to the catering shop. Tomika was gone, busy giving tasting demonstrations to a councilman's wife, and it was only Mai and Hisa at the workroom when Orihime got there.

Both girls were hunched over the previous day's newspaper as Orihime entered the stuffy, warm kitchen. Mai looked to her with guarded fear. "Have you seen this story, Orihime?"

Orihime tied on her apron, fingers moving to tighten her ponytail as the other girls waved her over. She stood beside Hisa, who gave her a look that nearly appeared strangulated.

"Tell me if that isn't that guy who followed us at the hostess club the other night," Mai said in an unusually grave tone.

Orihime looked closer at the story they'd been reading. The article was headlined by '_Apparent Murder in Alley_,' and went on to describe the businessman who'd been found impaled in the alley outside the hostess club after having been missing for several days. He'd been celebrating his promotion, the hostess who'd attended him had explained to the newspaper interviewer, and had gone outside for some fresh air, never to return to his table.

At first the hostess had decided he'd left the club to go home after skipping out on his bill, and not wanting to get in trouble she'd covered for him for a day. But when he hadn't shown up for work or home the next two days, his wife had reported him missing.

The details of the grisly crime were unlike most -- and there were very few -- in Karakura Town. Orihime's lips moved as she read the account. He'd been found with a gaping hole in his chest, the method of impalement not known nor weapon found, slumped in a corner by the garbage dumpster by a porter two days later, his corpse buzzing with flies in the heat.

The details of the fatality rang familiar in Orihime's head, the large hole in the man's chest, no trace of culprit or weapon, no defensive wounds on the man. A quick attack, the authorities had claimed.

"Isn't that him?" Mai asked, pointing to the small mug shot of the man in his business suit the paper had run alongside the article.

Orihime nodded, eyes on the man's impeccable appearance in the photo. Minus the slobbering smile and disarray of attire, she knew it was the man who'd pressed her up against the brick wall that evening. "It's him, I think."

Mai nodded. "It is."

Hisa shook her head, clucking her tongue. "You two were so lucky you weren't there when it happened. Can you imagine it? A hole clean through his chest! It says his lungs were hanging outside his back."

Mai wrinkled her face. "It does not."

"Does so. Right here."

"It says _chest cavity_ was caved in and, oh, yes, lung was ruptured and 'organs were forced through the posterior of the wound.'"

Orihime's thoughts turned inward as Mai and Hisa debated as to whether lungs were considered an organ or something else in the respiratory system and whether that was the organ in question. Orihime didn't listen, her memory replaying the events of the night. She and Mai had hurried out of the alley as quickly as they could. She recalled the man making noises, sounds she attributed to him vomiting and collapsing in a drunken stupor.

_Sounds that could also be attributed to someone shoving his hand through the businessman's chest_, she thought, swallowing awkwardly as Mai and Hisa's voices rose to shrill levels.

She wouldn't have known if Grimmjow was nearby, couldn't sense him as she had other times when Hueco Mundo was thick with Arrancar spiritual pressures and Aizen's nearly suffocating presence. Her lacking spiritual awareness worried her, and if Grimmjow was responsible for something like the murder in the alley he could be within arm's reach without her even knowing it.

Orihime found herself shaky for reasons aside from the article, reasons her coworkers wouldn't understand, but they attributed it to the shock of the story.

"Hey, don't work about it," Hisa said, putting a hand on Orihime's arm as she looked to her paling expression. "A friend of yours called the shop earlier today and he said he'd be here to walk you home after your shift." She smiled, patting Orihime's arm. "He sounded really worried."

Hisa's reassuring words didn't make Orihime feel any safer. "My friend? Did he say his name?"

Hisa nodded. "Kurosaki."

The flicker of relief at the name was drowned out by the wave of guilt that washed over Orihime. She forced a smile. "Oh, he's nice, but I don't need an escort home. I'm not working that late."

"You're going to turn down a boy walking you home?" Mai said, shaking her head as she folded the newspaper. "I wouldn't."

"He's a friend. He's engaged to another friend of mine," Orihime said, feeling a little ill at the words. Neither Hisa nor Mai had recognized the name, and she realized they didn't know the particulars of the Kurosaki catering order that she knew. "Does he know what time I leave work today?"

Mai and Hisa exchanged looks. "No. Didn't you tell him?"

Orihime shook her head and sighed. "He'll probably call back." She looked around for the baker's rack of buns they were to fill with sweet bean and sesame paste for a restaurant order. "When are those due?"

Mai groaned as she looked at the three racks containing sixty buns. "In an hour."

Orihime straightened her posture against the warmth of the kitchen. "We're behind."

Mai and Hisa nodded guiltily.

* * *

The later afternoon was nearing evening by the time Orihime finished her short shift at the catering shop, and she skipped out the back door as soon as it was over. She didn't want Ichigo to walk her home; she felt no danger from whomever it was that had impaled the businessman in the alley at the hostess club.

Not because her defensive skills were that sharp, but if her guess at who had done the killing was accurate, she didn't have a chance against him. And she didn't think that she was the target. In fact, Grimmjow had every opportunity to hurt her at her most vulnerable moments, if he chose to.

"That's what he meant," she thought suddenly as she was pulling the hair scrunchie out of her hair, leaving her ponytail to fall loose in her bathroom that evening. "That's what Grimmjow meant," she told her reflection over the sink basin. "I didn't really fight back against the man in the alley. Maybe that's what he meant," she murmured, relief flooding her so quickly it was almost painful.

But he'd also said not to go willingly. She'd forgotten that part, so preoccupied with what the other words might have meant that she'd nearly forgotten about it.

It all made more sense now. _Well, a little more sense_, she thought as she washed her face and dried it with a hand towel. She dabbed at her eyes, the cold water welcome after the hot kitchen at work. She hoped Ichigo wouldn't be too mad at calling his house and leaving a message not to bother walking her home. She'd left it with Yuzu, whom Orihime was sure would be prompt in delivering it to Ichigo when he got back from the clinic. Yuzu was like that.

She brushed her hair and reattached her hairpins to either side of her head. She shook out her tangerine colored tank top, choosing it when she'd washed up after work that left her blouse and pants spotted with pomegranate juice from an unruly blender. She smoothed it over her panties as she tried to decide whether to find a pair of shorts or a gauze skirt for an evening of loafing around. _Maybe even just the tank top,_ she thought with abandon. Thoughts of the swimming pool in Tatsuki's keep made her want the water, but she was in no mood for a thirty minute walk on the hot sidewalks.

Also, there was a slim chance Ichigo would call her and give her grief for not letting him escort her. She couldn't accept his offer for protection, not when she was allowing one of their former enemies into her bed.

How much of an enemy Grimmjow was -- or even if he was an enemy at all -- puzzled Orihime. As far as Soul Society was concerned, all the Arrancar and certainly the Espada were dead. Grimmjow was indeed alive, but she wasn't sure if he was still in league with Aizen. There was little indication either way. Maybe that was why he'd sought her company.

_Well, perhaps one reason, anyway_, she thought, sighing as she stepped out of the bathroom, deciding on a gauze skirt before she raided the freezer for anything frozen.

She felt it as soon as she entered her bedroom in the minute coolness of the approaching early evening. The strong rush of reiatsu, a nearly breath-taking wash that seemed to invade her very bones. It was similar to the change Ichigo's spiritual pressure had undertaken when he was in Hollow form, but she knew his reiatsu, and this was not it.

She'd just put her hand on the sliding door to her small closet when she felt it, and turned to see what it was, fearing she knew.

Grimmjow nodded when she saw him, the glaring smile back in force on his face that brought back the times Orihime had seen him before the War.

"Get dressed," he said tightly, giving her bare legs only an indifferent glimpse. "You're going back to Hueco Mundo."

The breath fell from Orihime as she shook her head, brain refusing to comprehend the words. " ...No."

"No?" he barked, the flash leaping to his eyes. "Didn't you hear me, woman? Aizen isn't finished with you, so you're going back."

She shook her head again, this time more weakly as she backed a step, hand resting on a hanger of clothing in the closet. "No. Don't take me back, Grimmjow."

He laughed, a cruel cut to it far removed from the gentle words he'd spoken when he'd touched her hair a few days ago. "You think I'm only here to find a little amusement with you? You're going back; now get dressed!"

She shook her head, one hand going to her hairpin, but Grimmjow's fingers were already plucking it from her hair.

"No!"

She launched at him without thinking, desperation making her grab at the clip as his fingers pressed two of the flower petals.

"Stop it! Please, stop!"

Her fingernails left a trail of red across his arm as she tried to reach the hairpin, the decorative metal failing to resist under the pressure of Grimmjow's fingers.

He laughed at her attempt to claw his hand open, pushing her away as her hands flailed at him. A few times they reached him, fingernails thrashing in pathetic attempts to stop the flower petals from bending.

Orihime could feel Tsubaki's angry scream, his helplessness at the crease in the hairpin beneath Grimmjow's fingers.

To her surprise her desperate swipe left a double track of nail scrapes across his collarbone. His fist closed on the hairpin and he pushed his other hand to her throat, thumb against the softness that interfered with her breathing, fingers spread over her neck and shoulder in a firm hold, pushing her back against the clothes hanging in the closet, stilling her fight as he leaned close to her face.

"Get dressed, Orihime," he said thickly, watching her terrified eyes go from his hand on the hairpin to his face. "Do it now or you're going back naked."

He dropped his hand, but remained close.

She drew a shaky breath, eyes moving to the faint red marks on his chest and arm. She couldn't believe they were from her, knowing his reiatsu-hardened flesh took a skilled blade to cut. But it was also something she knew he could control, and why his skin had felt so smooth when she'd had her arms around him that night.

"Don't hurt them," she said, her voice ragged with pleading.

"Get dressed."

She nodded, waiting for him to move away.

He gave her a few feet of space.

She turned and grabbed the first skirt she found, fingers nervous on it as she tried to stop the surreal disbelief swallowing her ability to think.

"Why you?"

He didn't answer, and she chanced to look at him, gripping the skirt in both hands.

"Because I know you."

Her eyes dropped to the hairpin in his fingers, seeing the bent petals.

He laughed, extending his hand and opening it to reveal the damaged hairpin.

Her eyes narrowed on him, every nerve of her body tensing as his grin grew. "You don't know me, Grimmjow."

He chuckled lowly, watching her fingers hesitantly take the clip, seemingly oblivious to her own defenseless stage of undress.

"You better hope I do, Orihime."


	6. Nightmare Awake I

Grimmjow gave her no bracelet as Ulquiorra had, instead escorting Orihime through the rift of void that separated the Living World from Hueco Mundo by a mere tight grip on her wrist.

This time is was a vise-like hold on her that was sure to leave bruises, but as she stumbled behind him in the uncharted limbo of the bizarre zone between Dangai and the land of shadows and sand of Hueco Mundo Orihime was glad for his tight grip. The void around her on the outskirts of Hueco Mundo seemed to have no surface, her feet unable to find a steady step on the reishi that slipped from her feet, each step seeming to sink as she took it, a murkier footing than she remembered.

"Stay on your feet," Grimmjow said, his tone impassive as she struggled to follow.

She only nodded, the thick fog-like particles around them clouding the surroundings into obscure shadows as they entered the firmer Hollow World desert that was layered in a cold fog.

_Much like the strange play of shadows in my room,_ she thought. Her old room, it was to become. She closed her eyes, reluctantly grateful for the large hand on her wrist that kept her on her feet.

Around them was the eerie sound of a high pitched wail that sent a shiver up her spine, as if the screams of a thousand throats had melded into one agonizing stream. It sounded like voices to her, not mechanical or merely the wind straining through the shards of quartz trees. _It didn't quite have a screech effect_, she thought, trying to pinpoint the direction of the sound. More like the high, shrill notes of a Gregorian chant she'd had to listen to in Western music appreciation class last year, except it lacked any melodious qualities. She had _not_ appreciated the piece of music in class.

She couldn't determine the direction of the voices, and soon she discerned another sound, a lower tone camouflaged under the pitch, something more akin to a deep rumble that she felt more than heard with her ears.

She knew the desert of Hueco Mundo enough to know it was sparsely populated, nothing coming to her mind that would produce such a noise. Her trek with Ichigo had taught her that much.

Ichigo.

Her fist balled in the hand Grimmjow was pulling along ahead of her.

"Keep up," he said as she stumbled.

"What's that noise?"

"The Whaling. Meant to keep the weaker Hollows underground. Only the stronger ones surface."

As he said it the sounds of shifting sands was heard ahead. Grimmjow's hand rested on his sword hilt at his hip, eyes sharp on the heavy atmosphere around them in the falling night, fingers clasping even tighter on her wrist. She wondered what he saw, able to see nothing herself.

She looked into the thick wisps of fog to see no movement. "That deeper sound. What is it?"

"You can hear that?"

He looked to her, this time without the mocking leer he'd leveled on her in her apartment.

She nodded, hoping he'd say something other than to keep pace.

He only shook his head and tugged her along.

"I don't remember hearing any of those noises last time I was here."

He spared her a glance, shrugging as he quickened their steps. "Things are different. Keep that in mind."

The fog and shadows melted suddenly, the ground becoming firmer yet under her nervous steps, and Orihime found they were in the gloaming of twilight across the sandy terrain just outside of Las Noches. She frowned at it, her skirt and tank top inadequate for the coolness of the desert's nightfall. The whaling sound seemed louder.

She barely recognized the palace as they passed through the newly reconstructed exterior walls. Gone were most of the buildings of the complex inside, the formidable palace still standing but ravaged by countless shinigami and Arrancar battles that had tested and beaten many of the best on both sides of the War.

Grimmjow wove their path to the palace center, taking the least difficult of the ruins, seeming to know a path of easier passage among the rubble and debris.

To Orihime it seemed they walked forever, but she knew it couldn't have been more than an hour. The milky moonlight of evening barely registered moving as they reached the palace's double doors, so she knew it wasn't possible to have been the hours it seemed to her weary legs.

Grimmjow waved his hand over a panel of buttons at the doors and one of the massive doors opened to a dimly lit interior. They went in, and Orihime remained silent as he led them through the maze of corridors that veered progressively to the right, the side of the palace that was still passable. To the left was a newly constructed wall barricading the destroyed parts of the palace from the more livable portions.

Grimmjow wound their way slowly deeper down into the depths of the headquarters to where he knew Aizen would most likely be, where the once extremely powerful ex-shinigami usually spent his time when not in his own suite revitalizing.

Grimmjow grinned. He liked the sound of the term. Revitalizing. Gave the man a sound of weakness about him.

There'd been no chance to use the term when referring to Aizen in the pre-War era. It was Szayel Four that had coined the phrase, but then only in certain company. Even he didn't know how amusing the phrase was to Grimmjow, having only known Sousuke Aizen since his origins after the War.

The walls grew taller and darker as they followed the twisting corridors to the cavernous arena beneath the palace, the sounds of screams and painful cries leasing the air as Orihime's steps became reluctant. Grimmjow jerked her into a faster pace, but his hold on her wrist eased a little.

She hurried to remain at his side, not wanting to lag in the surreal sounds echoing from the open doorway in front of them. A cheer went up from it, followed by Aizen's voice. The cheer quieted and another round of battle cries began. Grimmjow led her through the doorway.

Inside Aizen stood at a balcony that ran around the entire length of the arena that overlooked a pit below that was sectioned into six parts, divided by jagged onyx walls whose shard-sharp sides had already sliced open backs, shoulders, and arms of those individuals scraping too closely. Each section had a battle of two to four Arrancar raging inside. Orihime's pulse leaped beneath Grimmjow's hand on her wrist, her eyes growing wide at the sights below. The sets of Arrancar were fully human in appearance, some taller than others, most equally matched in clumsy movements and attempts at skill level. They were all engaged in basic swordplay, not a cero or bala in sight. In a few corners were fallen forms, some maimed, others dead or dying.

Orihime looked to Aizen as his attention left the matches and went to her. He smiled at her, appearing much the same as she'd last seen him in his white robes, that innocuously benign manner that massaged him into an unsuspecting psyche.

"Orihime Inoue," he said, nodding. "At last you're back with us." He looked to Grimmjow as the Sexta dropped her wrist, eyes flicking to the arena only momentarily before going back to Aizen. "You must have been difficult to locate. It's been a while."

He'd said the last to Grimmjow, the sharpness in his eyes pointed for a brief second.

"She moved," was all Grimmjow offered in way of explanation.

Orihime felt her breath condense in her chest, but unlike the other times when she was around Aizen. It wasn't the suffocating pressing feeling, but definitely a compression, similar to the lesser feeling she had near Grimmjow.

Before she could think of something to say, Aizen resumed speaking, eyes on the battles below. "I'm reorganizing my forces," he said, unaware of the chuckle that Grimmjow was squelching. "I'm rebuilding a team of Espada that will be an echelon far above anything Soul Society has ever encountered. My research department is unfamiliar with many of the mundane characteristics of shinigami and Living, and I'm requiring you to aid in that area." He smiled and turned to look at her. "You're going to impart to my researchers the properties of your remarkable healing powers, and together we're going to create a new class of Espada."

She shook her head without thinking, stepping back as Grimmjow's hand braced at her shoulder to halt her movements.

"You're not declining," Aizen said, eyes narrowing on her, "are you, Orihime?"

She shook her head again, this time out of mesmerizing fear of him. "No, Aizen-sama."

"Good." His gaze dropped over her tank top and skirt as he nodded. "Grimmjow will be keeping you this time. I thought a familiar face would be easier than some strange new entity to you," he said, waving a hand to the mass of skirmishing Arrancar below. "He's the last of the original Espada."

She looked to Grimmjow, his stony stare on her unchanging.

"We believe in mutual benefits here," Aizen said, an edge coming to his tone as he looked at her, mouth losing its thin charm of smile she knew to be fake. "There are some Living World amenities here, and they'll become available to you, as your cooperation progresses. Of course, this is also an opportunity for discipline, Orihime," he added, "and lack of cooperation will be awarded as such."

Orihime felt her nerves numb at the words, knowing that they meant far more than the casual way Aizen said them. She nodded, feeling Grimmjow's hand press slightly firmer on her shoulder.

"It's not entirely your decision," Aizen said, his voice holding a deadliness to it. "But your willingness to aid us will be rewarded. You'll be meeting the research team tomorrow. Tonight you can go to your room." He looked to Grimmjow only briefly before his attention went back to the fighting below. "Get her settled in, Grimmjow. We have a few Arrancar to cull. That should provide enough testing material for One and Two to get started."

"Yes, Aizen-sama," Grimmjow said, pushing Orihime to the doorway.

Orihime felt weak as she walked before Grimmjow down the halls that seemed to close over her, the shouts of triumph and agony fading behind her as they ascended the sloping corridors.

She clenched her teeth, reprimanding herself not to cry, the tears brimming at her eyes as she choked down a sob. Ulquiorra had given her a choice, a chance to say goodbye, even if it was a silent farewell to only one person, and even if it really wasn't much of a choice.

She was unaware of the twist of halls and levels Grimmjow took them through, her mind on Aizen's words that could mean many things, all of them lethal to everyone she knew, and devastating to her future. She was truly vulnerable with Tsubaki damaged, confused by who One and Two could be, and frightened beyond comprehension at the threat of discipline as meted out by Aizen.

Grimmjow stopped them at a door in one of the many halls. It was one of several doors on that wall, a long gray wall that stretched tall and wide in each direction until it turned into other intersections of halls. He passed his hand over a keypad by the door latch and opened it, pushing her in before him.

"Couldn't you have told him you couldn't find me?" Her voice broke as she said it, and she hadn't really meant to say it. The words were out before she could stop them.

"He would have sent someone else if I didn't find you."

She frowned at the answer, looking around the room the door led into. It was almost the same size as her previous room in Las Noches, a cot and couch to one side at a rug, with a partial wall running three-quarters of the length of the rear wall of the room to make a division of sorts. There was no window, she noted with a dejected sigh.

Grimmjow closed the door behind them. "You had two extra weeks, Orihime. Consider yourself lucky."

She looked to him quickly. "You knew where I was for two weeks?"

He nodded. "Longer than that." He gestured to the cot and couch. "Your old room here was destroyed. This will have to do."

The full brunt of her confinement began to set in. "Can't you take me back, Grimmjow?" she said suddenly, her voice barely a whisper. "Just say I escaped. Or, or that I killed myself," she said with more passion.

He shook his head, a grin crossing his face. "No one would believe either of those ridiculous ideas." His hand passed over the blank control panel by the door, the sharpness claiming his tone again. "No more talk of stupid Living notions, Orihime. You're here to stay."

She wanted to speak more, but he prodded her to the couch where a small bundle of white clothing was rolled.

"You'll have more clothing made soon, but this will get you started." He put it into her reluctant hands and pushed her to the back of the room.

Her arms wrapped around the material, her heart feeling like it was going to jump out of her chest as the panic set in.

"Meals will be delivered here, and you'd better eat them without being forced," he said, turning her around the partial wall. Behind it was a sink against one wall and a toilet further in at the deepest end of the partitioned room. "There is no privacy here, so make the best of it, Orihime."

She looked to the toilet down the narrow slot of wall and back to Grimmjow as he pushed one of two buttons over the sink. The black rectangle on the wall above the basin illuminated into a mirror.

"This is for the water," he said, indicating the other button. "Lukewarm is all that is available."

She nodded, the tears threatening to surface again as she pulled the bundle of clothing closer to her chest.

"Get dressed," he said, eyes lowering to the tremble that was beginning at her lips.

He turned to leave, and she resisted the impulse to reach for his sleeve cuff. He glanced back as her hand shifted from the material in her arms, hearing the small inhale of her breath.

He scowled at the defenselessness in her face. "Don't say anything here you don't want the entire surveillance staff to hear," he growled in a low tone. "Everything here is heard."

She swallowed, nodding.

He turned and went around the partial wall.

Orihime closed her eyes against the tears that were collecting at her eyes, swallowing down the lump in her throat.

Grimmjow went into the main room with every intention of storming out the door to the waiting validation study of the new Arrancars Aizen would have him test for merit among his newly forming ranks. Never had the man done any of his own dirty work, instead handing those details to Grimmjow.

_Except for when it was a woman he wanted killed_, Grimmjow thought. Then Aizen was only too eager to handle the messiness. Like that simple shinigami girl, and his third-ranked Espada. Grimmjow never dismissed what Aizen had done to Halibel, once he'd learned of how the Espada had actually been disposed.

The small form on the other side of the short wall could be heard denying her weeping, sniffling soft sounds that normally weren't heard but from the dying and forsaken in Las Noches.

Grimmjow had ignored sounds like them before, sometimes it taking more resolve to turn from the weak, but this time he found himself looking for a reason to go back. The reason lay at the bedside. He glanced to where he knew a number of eyes were watching from the surveillance camera at one corner, and snatched the pair of small black sandals from the floor by the bed and strode back to the short wall.

Orihime looked to him as he entered the more private area, backing away at the threatening look on his face until she was at the toilet. He clapped one hand over her mouth and pushed her to the far wall, crowding her into the corner near the porcelain stool.

His fingers covered her mouth, eyes sharpening on her frightened face. "Listen to me," his low tone growled, "this is not the Los Noches you remember. Aizen has plans for you and he's not going to be delicate in executing them. Anything you thought you knew about this place with Ulquiorra is gone. If you want to survive, you listen to me."

She nodded, the movement making a tear escape her eye and trickle down her cheek to his hand.

He looked at the single warm spot as it met his finger at her cheek, watching it dissolve against their skin. His eyes snapped back to hers, this time with less intensity.

"This is the only square meter of space in the room not under surveillance, Orihime," he said, voice dropping to a hushed whisper, eyes resting on hers as she closed them. "Keep your eyes open, especially on the drones. Don't trust any of them."

Her eyes squeezed shut tighter for a second and then opened to his face, her head nodding slightly.

He removed his hand, watching her lips part as she took a deep shaky breath. "I had to bring you back. There was no other way."

She nodded, looking down as he handed her the sandals. "Don't leave me alone. Please, Grimmjow."

He didn't like the tug he felt in his chest at her words. Too much like something one of the feebler Arrancar would have attributed to a heart. "Not here."

The sharp look in his eyes was enough to let her know what he meant. "Jaegerjaquez-san."

He nodded at the clothes she held, resisting several urges new to him over the last week. "Hurry up."


	7. Nightmare Awake II

Orihime's room never darkened that first night, not entirely, not enough to eclipse her thoughts of the day and her newfound terror of being back in Las Noches. She lay on the cot for a long time, hours after Grimmjow had delivered her supper and left for the night.

She assumed it was the night. The indirect lighting of the room lowered to half power after he'd left with her empty dishes, and several minutes later the lights had dimmed to a barely navigable power. It didn't matter to her that she couldn't see much of the boring, sparse room. She had nowhere to go except the lavatory area, no one to look at.

Grimmjow had watched her eat nearly silently from his seat on the chair that two servants he called Drones had brought in with her meal. Orihime couldn't determine if the small, slender beings were male or female, their figures ambiguous in charcoal gray coat and pants, the smooth features of their oval face unchanging. Both left without speaking.

The only conversation Grimmjow had allowed that morning were a few comments on her first full day at the laboratory.

"Listen to what they tell you and do it," he'd said, his face remaining impassive as he spoke. "Do _only_ what they tell you and no more."

Orihime had nodded, hoping to see something in his face to give her an indication as to his mood, but there was nothing. She'd seen him and his reactions enough during the War and her first captivity in Hueco Mundo to know something of his moods. To know quite a lot, in fact.

But now there was nothing. It saddened her all the more, magnifying the feeling of forsakenness, until he left for the night, and she realized that the void in his reactions may be just as telling as his fury or passion.

He was covering up everything, nothing slipping past the blank look he gave her, and while she wanted to read a multitude of hope into the dispassionate façade he showed, she didn't dare. If there was anything to be seen, Grimmjow wasn't careless enough to let it show.

She let herself dare to hope he'd come back that night, even just to sit at the couch, just to know someone was there, she realized. But every time she opened her eyes, every time she focused too closely on the chair or couch, every time there was nothing to see, and she began to wonder if she'd made the last few nights up in her mind.

She looked at him now across the tray on her lap as she ate breakfast. He was sitting in the chair across from her, sword to one side near his leg, watching her with unchanging disinterest. Nothing more, no matter how long she could keep his stare, which wasn't too long.

"What's wrong?" he grumbled, eyes on her movements as she picked among the bowl of unidentifiable grains before her. "Why are you taking so long to eat?"

She didn't know how to explain tasteless to him. He didn't have to eat, and she wasn't sure if taste held any meaning to an Arrancar. "It's bland, and, and I'm not very hungry."

"You're around food all the time and you eat a lot of it," he said, voice lower as his eyes darted to the nearest smoky dome at one corner where he knew the current surveillance team was scrutinizing every movement. Not until the next shift would there be any slack in observation. "If you're done, we'll leave."

She carefully set the spoon down on the tray, more of a pout pulling at her lips. "Why didn't you let me say goodbye to anyone?"

His posture straightened more, alert to any misspeak she'd make. "Why? You want to stick around and watch that half-bred shinigami take up with that snippet of a female?"

Her eyes flicked to his. "You've been watching?"

He shook his head, standing and holstering his sword. "Just long enough to find you, woman." He nodded to her tray. "Let's go."

Orihime knew she'd said something wrong as they walked through the tall corridors a few moments later. She could feel it from him, the thick spiritual fluctuation he'd hidden those few nights from her. She hurried to keep up with him, the whine of the howling and the duller drone finding their way into the complex.

"For your own good," Grimmjow said, voice dropping a notch, "you'll keep quiet about the Wailing and any other sounds you hear."

She nodded, swallowing down the ebb of fear his warning sent through her.

"You'll keep quiet about other things, too."

She nodded, eyes closing only momentarily as she kept pace beside him as they turned a corner along the echoing hall.

It was another few halls before she summoned the courage to voice anything again.

"Then why did you come to me those nights?"

Grimmjow looked down at her, his mouth setting firmly at the raw desperation in the face she turned up at him. Of all the newly discovered things he wanted to say, he chose one of the most remote. "Why not?" He grinned, letting the callousness drip through. "Did it ever occur to you to say _no_, woman?"

She turned her face from him, gaze slipping down to look at the floor as the embarrassment seeped through her.

He didn't like the sinking feeling that lurched through his chest. His jaw set as they took the next corridor. "It seemed to me you rather enjoyed yourself." He wished he'd bitten back the words as soon as they'd left his mouth. It was too risky to utter such sentiments, but he wanted to drive out that indecision plaguing the fringe of his mind. "You didn't say no, woman," he reminded, leaning closer so that his words were a mere whisper. "You didn't say _stop_ or even _don't_."

"Would you ... would you have?" She didn't look at him, instead crossing her arms over her chest as if pressing the white garment to her would quell the sudden rattling in her breathing. "Would it have mattered?"

He stood straighter as they walked, milling through his answer. "Where's the challenge in force? Anyone can bully a weaker being to their will." A grin crooked over his face, but he had to work at putting it there, and there was no pleasure behind it. "Convincing you that's what you wanted was much more challenging."

She held her head higher, the posture making a determined line at her coral lips. "I know how to say no," she said, her voice soft but steady. When she looked to him there was a sudden flicker of liveliness in her eyes. She looked farther down the hall to where Aizen's voice could be heard speaking to someone in a room. The brief hint of sparkle in the violet-gray of her eyes diminished to be replaced by cloudy doubt.

Grimmjow found himself wishing the flicker of light would come back, but shook his head. "You place too high emphasis on emotions. All you Living do."

She didn't care that he might be right. It was the last tangible sense she had that had come with her to Hueco Mundo and she was keeping it despite his derision.

Grimmjow stopped them at the open doorway and ushered her inside. It was a long room, spare in its furnishings, consisting of a few rigid high-backed gray chairs around an oval table. Aizen sat there, and he looked up at Grimmjow and Orihime as they entered the room. A window darkened to match the slate walls ran along one side of the room at the far wall, but out it she could see nothing. Still the Wailing persisted, accompanied by the lower hum. She looked to the nondescript Drone as they passed it, again unable to determine its gender.

"Orihime, Grimmjow, please be seated," Aizen said, sitting back in his chair.

Orihime paused at her chair before carefully sitting down as Grimmjow sat opposite her across the table. In the center of the table was a tea service of white porcelain decorated with gold and blue lacquer. Aizen poured them each a cup of tea and set one before them, eyes on the girl's nervous features.

"You sit before a remarkable opportunity, Orihime," he said in a tone the verged on gentle, its musical qualities belying the emphasis the words held. "You were meant for so much more than playing nurse to a bunch of wounded shinigami."

She looked to him, bracing herself from shaking her head. "I don't see how I could be of assistance to you, Aizen-sama."

"You don't have to see it. That's my matter. Go ahead," he said, seeing her fingers edge to the cup of tea. "It's not too hot."

He watched her obediently raise the cup to her lips, pausing as the steam billowed around her face.

She steeled her fingers on the cup's handle, trying to keep her hand from trembling.

Aizen sat back more, looking to Grimmjow. "We're testing out the next batch of recruits. I want only half to make it to the next level, and only one-third of those to survive the final battery of tests," he said methodically. "You'll give them the usual prattle about loyalties and benefits."

Grimmjow nodded, eyes returning to Orihime as she sipped the hot tea.

"The three most severely injured of the top level will be taken to Recovery and remain there until Orihime is summoned to heal them." Aizen turned the cup before him to see the blue design on the side better, no real interest in his face. "Make sure they understand that they're being made whole because we have a special interest in them and their potential abilities."

"I know what you want," Grimmjow said, his voice tight with contained frustration. "A false sense of elevated position."

"Precisely."

Orihime only half listened as Aizen spoke more to Grimmjow, most of his flowery language saying the nothing that had confused and colored his speeches for as long as she'd heard them recounted to her. Most of the recounting had come from Ichigo, but a few had come from stories told by Renji and other shinigami. She knew he'd say whatever it took, the phrases altered to suit his needs to get the response he wanted, but in the end it was _always_ about what Aizen wanted.

And usually got.

" ...and leave the top four alive," he was saying as Orihime's mind wove back to the conversation between the men. She looked to Grimmjow, who was nodding slightly, eyes on her, but without any indication of connection. His tea cup remained untouched.

She looked back down to the cup in her fingers on the table, still amazed at a man who could appreciate such fine things as what she knew to be a rare blend of tea could be so heartless to so many.

Grimmjow stood up and Orihime watched him leave the room without a word, closing the door behind him.

"As highly evolved as an Espada can aspire to become," Aizen said as Orihime's attention reluctantly went to him, "they are severely lacking in many of the fundamental tasks that I must admit I miss from several paths of my past."

She frowned at him, her thoughts freezing as his gaze went over her face for a scrutinizing moment, resting on the cascades of hair that lay over her shoulder nearest him.

"Since the War," he said with a sigh, "I've found a void in companionship here. Rebuilding the compound is my first priority, but my army will take longer. I want the top echelon to be an enemy unlike any shinigami has seen before, and that is where you will be assisting the most." He paused to take a drink of tea. "Even Grimmjow is without what one could call compatibility on anything more than a military level. In you, Orihime, I see possibilities that may be mutually beneficial."

She didn't like the sound of it, not the words he used, not the way he hedged around saying nothing yet hinting at more, not the smirking smile that didn't fully form at his mouth. "I understand reward and punishment, Aizen-sama."

He nodded. "I'm sure you do, but even among those options there are other layers of entitlements that may be accessed." His eyes suddenly narrowed as he looked to her, a shade of coolness slipping over them like a veil. "You've spent much time among the shinigami, Orihime," he said thickly. "I can feel it on you most when you're upset. You're drenched in reiatsu, mostly from Kurosaki."

She felt her mouth open in confusion and some horror at the observation, but remembered herself and closed her mouth quickly. Before she could try to respond, his expression lightened, but only a little.

"We'll quickly remedy that," he said, chuckling a bit. "Not a concern for you. We'll get you cleaned up."

The choice of words lent a chill to Orihime's spine, and she clenched her fingers together in her lap beneath the table to keep her hands from shaking. "Remedy it?"

He nodded, and then looked to the door as it opened. "Ah, part of our research team. Come in, brothers."

To Orihime's surprise, two Szayel Aporros stepped into the room, both identical in appearance, dressed in gray lab coats and pants. They each looked to her with varying degrees of interest before nodding to Aizen as they stopped at the edge of the table.

"Szayel One and Szayel Two, both from our original Szayel Aporro," Aizen said, his tone now back to its steady self. "Re-enabling our lead scientist was not a complete success, but we've managed to render shares of him in several forms." He gestured to Orihime with a wave. "Brothers, our newest member of the effort, Inoue-chan. She'll be assisting you, as has been discussed previously. But first," he added in a more serious voice, "she'll need a thorough scrubbing before we go any further. We try to keep the shinigami influences to a minimal here," he said to her as the fear slipped over her face. "Not to worry."

Orihime's eyes went to the pair of scientists as Aizen stood and finished his tea. She mechanically got to her feet, staring back at the two new Arrancar.

"You're excused from any further duties today, Orihime," Aizen said, watching her closely. "You can begin your collaboration with the team tomorrow. Go with them."

She looked between the men. They were identical, but their expressions were markedly different. Szayel One's face held an opportunistic grin, eyes drifting over her with open approval, but Two simply gave her a look of indifference.

"Come with us, sister," One said.

He led her down the hall, with Two trailing behind her, One's steps quick and sure as he took the meandering and puzzlingly similar corridors with a confidence that made Orihime wary. He didn't speak to her, instead humming lowly as they walked, his carriage easy, nearly jaunty, something she vaguely recalled from the Szayel Aporro she'd seen a few times from her first imprisonment at Hueco Mundo over a year ago.

He turned a final hall and paused before a door, swiping his hand over the inconspicuous looking metal square beside the latch, much like Grimmjow had done at her room. He stepped in and nodded for her to follow when she lagged. Behind her Two was close, not touching her even as she hesitated.

The laboratory was starkly white, everything of stainless steel or black marble, with equipment on the tables lining the walls, the center graphite table bare except for something covered at one end by a white cloth, no bigger than Orihime's toaster at her apartment in Karakura Town.

"We're most interested in isolating the properties of your healing abilities," One said, turning to her as she stopped to look at the room. "We have several methods available to us to determine those properties," he said, grinning too eagerly as he gave her a more complete appraisal, "but we'll start with simple observation."

"Tomorrow," Two said from behind her as he stepped into her field of vision, his face still without much expression. "Aizen-sama wants you stripped of any foreign reiatsu today."

She nodded, feeling a wave of surrealism slip over her senses.

Szayel One was still smirking. "You'll disrobe, please."

Orihime took a step back, arms crossing before her over the white dress coat, on impulse shaking her head at One's leer.

"That's not necessary," a voice said from a corner of the room.

She turned to see yet another Szayel sitting at one of the tables before a piece of equipment that looked to her like a microscope. He shook his head, eyes on One.

"It's not required to remove your clothing for decontamination," he said, glancing to her. "I'm Szayel Four. One is always too eager to go the extremes."

Szayel Two had moved to the far side of the room where a door led to the next chamber. Orihime could see it through the wide window over the table there. It was a smaller room with a bench built into the opposite wall, empty of anything else. Two opened the door and looked in, glancing at the overhead vent.

"Fine, let's get you started," One said, smirk falling away as he sent Four a glare. There was no humor in his face when he looked back to Orihime. "This will take a few hours, at least, so if you need to use the lavatory, do it quickly."

Ten minutes later Orihime found herself sitting at the bench in the smaller chamber, staring back at the three Szayels that watched from the laboratory room window. There'd been little preparation, a few passes of a metered wand about her and some notes recorded, and then Two escorted her into the chamber with the bench and instructed her to sit.

She did, nervous on the bench against the wall, every nerve in her body alert for something to happen. But all that happened was a slight blurring of her vision from the nearly imperceptible waves that emitted from the ceiling vent. After half an hour of sitting erect and nearly petrified with fear, nothing seemed to be happening, and Orihime allowed her back to rest against the wall behind her.

On the other side of the window all three Szayels were watching, and after an hour the one who'd introduced himself as Four turned back to his work at the table. One and Two continued watching, Two making notes at intervals and checking a few monitors out of Orihime's vision at a table by the glass.

"Try to sit still," One said over a speaker.

She nodded and sat straighter. After another hour of more nothing, however, her posture sagged again, and this time she tried to lean slowly to the slate wall. There was no sound to be heard in the small chamber, no smell of the wavy atmosphere, just the steady drone that hummed seemingly louder as the hours passed.

It was the same monotonous tone that Grimmjow had been surprised that she could hear when they first arrived at the desert compound. She said nothing of it, not even to move her lips in empty words to herself for company. He'd said to tell no one, and it was advice she knew she should keep.

Her eyes closed as the mesmerizing drone grew louder, taxing her strength at doing nothing, leaching her energy as she let her back press to the wall behind her. After a few moments the sound seemed to seep into her skin, following her nerves to the ends, making her flesh tingle until it was desensitized to feeling.

She caught herself as she began to slump over, eyes jerking open to see Szayel One watching her intently on the other side of the glass, Two standing behind him looking at a clipboard. Four sat at the table, glancing to her askance as he worked. She let her eyes close again, this time her feet pushing on the floor so her back was more firmly against the wall.

Her mind wandered to the life she should have been living instead of being fleeced of residual shinigami reiatsu. Her boss and co-workers would wonder where she was. So would Tatsuki. So would her landlord when rent came due.

Ichigo would think she was upset about his engagement to Rukia. Renji would probably raise a fuss at the luncheon about his usual views of her previous attachment to Ichigo. No one would search for her for a few days, maybe a week, and not seriously until she missed the catered affair at the Kurosaki residence. And if anyone guessed at the truth, Soul Society might not be so understanding about her compliance with Aizen this time.

She felt her senses slip away, the draining spiritual pressure from her taking her life energy as well, leaving her weakened. Her mind was numb with the hum that was growing louder by the moment, making her eyes hurt when she tried to open them. Sleep seemed inevitable, and she felt her body lean to one side, a slow descent to the bench, her muscles too lax to stop her. Even if she wanted them to.

* * *

Grimmjow scowled as he left the small meeting room where he'd left Orihime with Aizen nine hours ago. He didn't expect to find her there, not really, but a thorough search of her quarters had made him worried.

_Not worried_, he corrected. Worry was too much like a concern reserved for the Living, but the girl was his responsibility, and one he wanted to keep.

It wasn't all that novel responsibility that made his strides quicken as he followed the corridors to the laboratory to where the Szayels were most likely running their preliminary tests on their new subject. A vein of protection was starting to form over the addition to Las Noches, a thick layer Grimmjow hadn't expected. She was weak, one of the weakest -- and at the same time one of the most potent -- creatures Las Noches had ever housed, and right now she was vulnerable to a wide array of threats.

He glanced at Szayels One and Two as he ripped open the laboratory door, his eyes searching for their test subject.

"You can't be in here until we're finished," One began, but Grimmjow pushed past him, attention on the slumped form he could see in the small room beyond the window. Orihime's crumpled figure seemed to be shrinking before his eyes, the white robe and loose pants slack as she lay half on her side on the bench.

Grimmjow glared at One. "How long has she been in there?"

One pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, the Espada's sudden rage bringing an amused smile to his face. "She's heavily contaminated, Jaegerjaquez-san. She'll need at least three more hours, to be --"

"How long?" Grimmjow bellowed at him. Two and Four both looked to him from their work stations against the wall.

"Eight hours," Four said, casting a look to One.

"Get her out," Grimmjow said, looking back to the bench. "Did you feed her? She's Living; they have to eat."

"She ate this morning before she got here," One said, shrugging, making no movement to the door to the chamber. He looked to the clipboard Two held. "Her levels are still registering. Aizen-sama wants no detectable amounts --"

"To hell with his levels," Grimmjow growled. He pulled open the door to the small room, sending it into the wall with a metal-denting bang that bent the latch.

He went to Orihime's unconscious form and pushed her hair back from where it had fallen over her face. There was no response, no movement from her. A pale bluish cast covered her face, her skin cool to his hand as he put his fingers against her cheek.

"Damn idiots," he muttered, pulling her upright to lean her back to the wall. He put a large hand to her chest, knowing there should be a heartbeat to be felt. He was aware of the ample breast beneath his fingers, something that almost deterred his search for a heartbeat, but then her head fell forward, nearly cuffing his chin as he pressed his hand harder.

It was barely there, a faint beating, unlike the strong pound he'd felt that first night after sex with her when he could have sworn he could actually see her flushed skin move.

"Orihime," he said lowly, aware the three scientists were watching with different degrees of interest. Her lips parted slightly, eyelids shifting but not opening. He scooped her up bridal-style and took her out of the room.

"You can't take her yet," One said as Grimmjow brushed past him and Two. "She's not ready. We'll need another --"

"Finish another time," Grimmjow bit back as he headed for the door.

"I run this lab, Jaegerjaquez-san," One said, his tone lacking any frivolity now. "Leave her. She's not ready yet."

Grimmjow had reached the door to the hall. He kicked it open and left.

"Grimmjow!" One yelled after him, voice rising to a whine.

"Go to hell!" Grimmjow called back.

He strode down the hall with the limp form, pulling her closer to his chest as a trembling began in her hands folded at her stomach. He held her tight, making her fingers lock against the scar running down his torso, subduing her shiver through strength alone.

He swallowed down the words that wanted to be uttered as he followed the maze of corridors to her room. He knew the Szayels were new to dealing with the Living, but some basic knowledge was to be expected.

Her room was empty, the lights on one notch above dim for the early evening hour. He knew from one of his few contacts that he'd have several ninety-second intervals of lapses in the surveillance, but it wasn't much. He hadn't told Orihime about the very brief time of lax supervision. He wasn't too certain about her ability to hold her tongue when in the presence of authority.

He placed her on the couch, gently without seeming to do so. Her hands were still shaking, her breathing ragged. He looked around at the smoky domes in the ceiling, wishing for the telltale flicker of lights. He paced before the couch, sorting through the excuses he could use to do what he felt necessary.

He watched her fingers twitch, small movements that he wanted to still.

"Hell with them," he mumbled. He sat down beside her and pulled her into his lap, tucking the folds of white robe to his side, cradling her chest to his. It was a movement foreign to him, unlike when he'd invited himself into her bed. This was a different kind of unresponsiveness than when he'd kissed her unmoving lips. Her body hung limp in his arms, almost as if she didn't care to help herself revive.

"Open your eyes," he said, the words not the ones he wanted to say. Her eyes fluttered, but remained shut. He held her with one arm and used his hand to smooth her hair from her face, watching her lips move at his touch.

For fifteen minutes he sat with her, his embrace tight around her form, feeling her body begin to warm again. He knew it wasn't his own body heat that prompted it, nor his beating heart against hers. Eventually the blue cast to her face faded for the healthier pink he knew she should have. He watched with fascination as the color came back, so engrossed with the change he almost missed the flicker of lights overhead.

He looked to the nearest surveillance dome, and then back down at Orihime. He pulled her closer, her spine delicate against his arm, her breathing more regular. He lifted her face to his, lips near her ear as her eyes remained closed.

"Listen to me," he said barely above a whisper. "You can't give up here."

She made no response, the only indication of change in her hands that quieted their trembling.

Grimmjow sighed against her ear, fingers tightening on her side as he shifted her closer. His mind counted down the precious seconds before the surveillance would resume as he debated his next words. He decided against them.

Her fingers curled in his jacket, taking a small hold of the white material as she slept on. He didn't know why he felt like grinning as he watched her hand move on his jacket, but he did. Instead he settled back on the couch with her, feeling her relax against him.

He figured there'd be hell to pay with the Szayels.

Maybe with Aizen, too.


	8. Reawakening I

Orihime was dizzy as she awoke slowly the next morning. She lay on her side, curled on the cot with the edge of the blanket pulled over her. It took her a few moments to recall where she was, and why the stark interior of her new cell at Las Noches wasn't part of a dream.

She made an effort at pushing the blanket down from her, the confining white clothes making movements more of a chore. She closed her eyes against the lights, swallowing, her mouth dry. Her ears were ringing and her last thoughts were of too many Szayels and the loud buzz and what felt like a hemorrhage of spiritual energy.

That's what Aizen wanted, she knew.

Drain her of any shinigami influence.

Well, he had, she thought, at least, nearly had.

She put a palm to the cot mattress and pushed against it, easing into a sitting position that took most of her strength. She leaned against the wall behind her and sighed. The last thing she remembered was a deep fog that enveloped her senses in the laboratory chamber, and then somehow Grimmjow's voice had drifted in. She knew it was his voice, knew it was his arms around her, even recognized the smell she knew to be associated with him.

What she didn't know was if it was a real sensory perception or simply her rampant imagination flooding her unconscious.

It didn't matter, she thought, running a hand through her tangled hair as she licked her dry lips and looked around the room. It didn't matter if her mind had added to her limited reality. She knew it was his voice, and that he'd called her name, but beyond that she wasn't sure what was real. She couldn't respond, and that's what dreams did to the sleeping.

Maybe something had gone wrong, that was why she was exhausted.

Or maybe all of the shinigami reiatsu was indeed leeched from her. Maybe everything had gone right.

She leaned her head to the wall, closing her eyes against the bright lights overhead, ignoring the eyes beyond the shaded domes that were watching her.

* * *

Grimmjow sat across from Aizen, ignoring Szayel One to the third side of the table in the long room with the gray walls and window. Usually Aizen reserved the room for what Grimmjow had heard termed as casual meetings, but the only time he'd seen it used was for Orihime recently, and a select few Espada - back when Las Noches had been brimming with Arrancar.

Aizen wasn't pleased, a long-suffering look on his face as Szayel One, who'd been detailing Grimmjow's affront to his laboratory and authority by removing the Living girl, wound to a conclusion.

"I can't do my job if he's going to be carrying off my experiment material," Szayel One snapped, eyes tightening into knots until he realized his mistake. "By that, Aizen-sama, I meant that she's under my command while in the lab, and -"

"Our sister Orihime Inoue," Aizen said emphatically to the scientist, voice lowering, "is not experimental material. She's a vital element to our return to power."

Grimmjow wanted to correct the _return_ part of the phrase, but didn't. He knew the Szayels weren't privy to the full story behind Aizen's ultimate failure with the Hyogoku and its implications, but rather the illusion - a more verbal illusion, this time - of Aizen's temporary stay of power.

He frowned at the scientist, Orihime's frail form in his arms still tangible. "If you knew how fragile the Living were, you wouldn't be conducting -"

"Brothers, we are working toward the same goal here," Aizen said, his hand turning the blue and gold tea cup before him on the table. Untouched cups of tea were waiting in front of both Grimmjow and Szayel One, neither interested in the beverage. "This is what I didn't want to happen." He looked to each of them steadily for a moment before sitting back in his chair. "Grimmjow knows better what the Living are capable of, as well as what they are not. His word stands on her tolerances."

Szayel made a prim pout, which grated against Grimmjow's nerves.

"Her levels are nowhere near zero," Szayel said. "She's at a high twelve percent, and that's going to interfere with your comfort standards, Aizen-sama."

"Then don't do it all at once, fool," Grimmjow told him. "_Any_ researcher knows something like that."

Szayel sat straighter at the insult. Something in it rang bells long since the burial of the original Szayel, but his psyche recalled enough of it to know calling out his expertise as a scientist was more offense than he should tolerate. "I know my job, Jaegerjaquez-san," Szayel said with a frown. "If Aizen-sama is going to be spending time with her, she needs to be near zero."

Grimmjow's attention had snapped to Aizen before he could stop himself. "I thought she was here for healing purposes."

Aizen nodded, considering his tea. "I've found that my grafting with the Hyogoku has reawakened some of my latent interests," he said slowly, as if answering another query that no one had asked. "Perhaps it's the perimeter barrier to keep the Hollows at bay, but I've discovered lately that parts of my former life have become important again."

Szayel watched his superior with confusion, the scientist in him unable to understand the ex-shinigami's apparent ramblings. Although he'd once been an excitable personality, those flamboyant characteristics were now split into other parts, and what remained was primarily scientific. "Her levels are still high, Aizen-sama," he said, most of the ruler's allusions passing him without comprehension. He looked to Grimmjow. "I'll need at least three more hours _without_ interruption."

"I'll determine her levels myself," Aizen said, glancing to Szayel. "Ready the Recovery room and we'll arrange our first demonstration of her abilities so you can get a better idea of exactly what she's capable of doing." A line of a grin began at his lips. "I think you'll be astonished at what our sister can manipulate."

Szayel had only heard the parts he wanted. He stood and bowed slightly to Aizen. "I'll be able to finish with her at some point?"

"If need be. You're dismissed," Aizen told him.

Szayel One gave Grimmjow a disgruntled look, and then headed out of the room.

Grimmjow found himself studying Aizen more thoroughly. Aizen didn't look at him as he raised the cup to his lips.

"You have something to ask, Grimmjow?"

The Sexta kept most of the frown from his face. "The Hyogoku has unexpected influences?"

Aizen took his drink and set the cup on the table, not looking to his remaining Espada. "There were recreational circumstances of my past lives I find I very much ... would like to reinvent," he said cautiously, looking slowly to Grimmjow now. "A delicate voice in the palace reminds me there is more to strategy than planning battle fronts. She may provide a welcome departure from what this palace has become." He shook his head at the scowl covering Grimmjow's face. "Nothing of a military nature, so you needn't bother with the details of it yourself. I'll take care of any arrangement myself. Is she strong enough for a demonstration in Recovery?"

Grimmjow made himself nod, his mind stuck on what he thought Aizen's words meant. He'd seen a progressive trend in the ruler lately, mostly when he was away from his retreat - his revitalization - for too long. Or maybe it was the Hyogoku's influence. "She was unconscious when I left her, but she seemed to be resting well. It wouldn't take much to tax her, Aizen-sama. She was pushed too far yesterday."

"We can't have that." Aizen looked to the tea cup, seeming to study the pattern for a moment. "She's important to me. I want her well."

Grimmjow waited for him to continue, something about the words Aizen wasn't using making him want to close a hand around the ex-shinigami's throat and demand a better answer.

But it wasn't the first time Grimmjow had had the impulse, and he sat silent, waiting.

"Take her to Recovery. I'll get your report later. Have her heal the recruits we discussed earlier." Aizen sat back in his chair, looking to Grimmjow. "Unless that's beyond her strength at this time."

Grimmjow stood. "Two of the weaker ones died last night. There's only a few left, some with more minor injuries."

Aizen nodded. "It's enough for now. I'll be in my chambers for the next few hours. Send your report by a Drone."

A moment later Grimmjow was on his way to Orihime's room, the thoughts tossing through his mind shifting his already high dislike of Aizen into new directions. He knew the man liked his fancy calligraphy art and exotic teas, and those were easy to overlook - throwbacks to his shinigami days, Grimmjow had always thought - but since the barrier had been in force he'd seen a few changes.

He knocked twice on Orihime's door before unlocking and opening it. She was sitting on the bed, fully dressed, looking a little wilted, but otherwise okay, he decided.

She looked quickly to him, standing as he approached.

"Are you all right?" he blurted before he could check himself. He scowled. "You're stronger now?"

She nodded, hands clasped before her, eyes still looking a little vacant. "Thank you for taking me out of there yesterday, Jaegerjaquez-san," she said, steeling herself from looking to the nearest smoky dome overhead. "Thank you."

"You've got to tell the Szayels when you're weak," he said, eyes roving over her slightly mussed hair. He'd overlooked a few of the necessities for her stay. Everyone had. "Are you strong enough to heal a few bodies?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I can do it." She swallowed, frowning a bit. "Is Aizen-sama angry with me?"

"Don't worry about him." She looked thinner to him, but Grimmjow knew it wasn't possible, not in the space of a day. "A Drone will be in in a few minutes with your meal. Eat, and then we'll meet with the Szayels."

She nodded, eyes dropping to the floor as she pushed a hand through her hair at one shoulder. Grimmjow stood straighter, watching her eyelashes move as she looked to one side.

"Are you strong enough to go?" he asked, voice falling lower.

"Will you be there?" she asked almost inaudibly.

"Yes. Are you strong enough, Orihime?"

Her eyes flicked to his, the shadow of a smile hinting her lips. "Yes. Uh, how many are there?"

* * *

The room Aizen had set up for recovery was exclusively for the Szayels and Orihime's purposes. The ceiling arched in the center, the elevated height running down the length of the middle, with indirect lighting along both long walls. Against one wall was a line of cots, some filled with bodies beneath gray blankets.

Orihime couldn't decide if the indirect lighting along the top of the long walls was natural or artificial, and it didn't matter, except that she missed the outside world, even if it was all desert. She followed Szayel One and Two, feeling Grimmjow close behind her as One chatted nonstop about his work - soon to be _their_ work - in the room.

"You're required to heal the recruits under my supervision," Szayel One said as he stopped them at the first cot with a form beneath the gray covers. He glanced to Grimmjow, returning the Espada's sour look, and then back to Orihime. "You're only permitted to heal under mine or Aizen-sama's authority, and -"

"Only under Aizen's orders," Grimmjow corrected from behind Orihime.

"Aizen-sama tells me which recruits he wants to recover," One said pointedly, "and I tell our sister. She listens to me."

Orihime didn't look at Grimmjow, instead keeping herself to a nod as she looked to the cot. The form in it was human in shape, like most of the elevated Arrancars she'd seen, tall, and unmoving. The face was covered by a cloth as large as the pillow, and she saw it move faintly when the recruit breathed.

She felt ill, partly due to her weakness from the day before and her scant meal she'd made herself eat under Grimmjow's direction, but mostly because she knew she had no choice in aiding Aizen now. She felt her healing sprites fidgeting at the task at hand. Even Tsubaki, who'd been inordinately quiet during his injury, was squirming in his hair pin.

"Two and I will observe while you heal this recruit's injuries," Szayel One was saying, a gleam in his eye as he looked from her to the form on the cot. "Today is merely observation. Tomorrow we'll see where it takes us." Now he glanced to Grimmjow. "You don't need to be here."

Grimmjow's attention went to Orihime as she hastily looked to him. "I'll wait at the door."

"Outside the door," One insisted.

Grimmjow wanted to break something on the scientist more than usual. "Not after yesterday."

There was a little more mumbling and a few threats, but Grimmjow finally took his post at the inside of the door near the hall, watching the girl at the cot side. He knew the procedure, recalled her gentle presence at his side as she restored his arm in Aizen's hall, had seen her heal Ichigo for his final battle with him.

A low grumble came deep in his throat. The temporary shinigami didn't deserve her, no matter how much she thought she loved him. He'd seen firsthand the sappiness of her devotion, devotion to the point of standing up to _him_ and refusing to heal Ichigo, even when his hand was at her throat. Grimmjow's thoughts screeched to a halt. He hated human sentiments, but they were contagious.

As the hours passed, he watched her bent head over the second to the last cot, the fatigue in her shoulders making her movements slower now. She'd healed the first two recruits easily enough, the third taking longer with more intense injuries. Grimmjow knew this; he'd inflicted the injuries, according to Aizen's instructions. Her healing had taken longer after that, sapping her still recovering strength.

She nodded to something Szayel One said, and then knelt to stretch her arms over the form on the cot at the wall. Even from his distance Grimmjow could see her fingers tremble, her arms waiver as she formed the healing bubble, lips barely moving as she silently repeated her kotodama.

The form beneath the gray covering moved a little, coughed. The Szayels nodded, One putting his hand to Orihime's elbow as she stood.

Grimmjow felt every nerve in his body bristle at the touch. He'd taken two steps before the scientist removed his hand, even as Orihime shied from his contact.

By the time Grimmjow joined them at the last cot Szayel One was scowling at the still form on the mattress.

"I think it's too late for this one," he said, sighing with disappointment. He flipped back the cloth over the recruit's face. Eyes stark with death stared up at them.

Orihime stepped back as the face was exposed, her back meeting Grimmjow. He put one hand on her shoulder when she flinched.

"She's done here," he said, hand bracing tighter as Orihime relaxed minutely under his fingers.

"This one's dead anyway," One said, giving the corpse a disgruntled glance. "Unless you can raise the twice-dead," he added with a chuckle to Orihime.

Grimmjow felt her stiffen at the comment. "Don't be ridiculous," he told the scientist. "She's done for today."

Without waiting for a confirmation, Grimmjow turned Orihime in front of him toward the door, quickening her pace when her first few steps lagged.

"I need her back tomorrow!" Szayel One called as Grimmjow reached the door, opened it and prodded Orihime through it. "You hear me, Jaegerjaquez-san?"

Grimmjow pulled the door shut behind them, turning her down the dimly lit corridor that wove deeper into the compound. She looked at the lights that shone down the quiet hall.

"Is it late?" she asked after a moment.

"You've been in there nearly all day," he said, walking to her side, his arm still across her shoulders for a moment longer. "You're tired."

She nodded, sighing as they continued on. She crossed her arms over her chest, fighting the weariness that had developed during the last few hours.

He looked to the blue flowered hair pin nearest him, saw the bent petals that he'd damaged the night she'd left her apartment.

She glanced up at him, seeing his eyes on the hair pin. "Why did you do that?"

He knew what she was talking about, but didn't answer right away. He shrugged as they made another turn, his arm dropping from her when he was certain she was able to walk on her own. "If the Szayels knew you had any protective powers they'd dissect that sprite until there was nothing left. If they think you're powerless they won't try to contain you."

Orihime couldn't deny the shiver that went up her spine at the answer. She sighed, tightening her arms in front of her.

Grimmjow wound them deeper into the labyrinth of halls, each corner looking just the same as ones they'd passed, to Orihime. He finally stopped them at one of the doors separated from the rest on a bend in the hall where a Drone stood with a small basket caddy in her hand, over her arm draped a set of clothes in pale green material.

Orihime looked swiftly to Grimmjow. He took the items from the Drone, who gave them each an impassive stare.

"You can leave now," Grimmjow told the slight figure. "Come back for her clothes later."

The Drone bowed and left down the hall.

Grimmjow opened the door and ushered Orihime in.

The room that greeted her was brighter than the ill-lit hall, but not quite clinical. A small room with tiled floor and walls opened first, a bench against the half wall that divided the second area. Grimmjow couldn't stop the opportunistic grin that surfaced on his face as he looked to Orihime's fearful expression.

"It's a shower, Orihime," he said, shaking his head at her reluctance. He reached for her hand when she didn't move, this time her fingers. He pulled her into the rear part of the rooms.

She followed, giving the cream colored tiles a wary glance as the smell of water grew stronger. Grimmjow hung the green apparel on a metal hook at the wall near a large mauve towel on a second hook and handed her the caddy.

She looked at it. "I'm to shower?"

He nodded, eyes falling over her figure as she looked apprehensively to the basket of toiletries. "It's not the closest facility to your room, but the one that is is for the labs, and I didn't think you'd want that."

"Oh, no, no. Thank you." She looked finally to the shower stall. It was much the same as any shower, with a nozzle high at one wall in the tiled compartment - except there was no door or curtain. Her eyes darted to Grimmjow.

"No curtain," he said before she could speak, grinning more at the color draining from her cheeks. "There's no surveillance on this side, so stop fretting. That's covered," he said with a nod to the first small room where they'd entered from the hall. "But not here."

"Oh." She moved closer to the shower wall as he looked to the caddy in her hands.

"That should have everything you need. Leave your clothes on the hook," he said, stepping around her.

She nodded, waiting for him to pass.

Grimmjow sighed as he went back to the first room. He glanced to the surveillance dome that had a clear view of the small entry room where he stood and the doorway of the shower room. He leaned his back to the wall behind him that was shared to the shower stall.

There was a pause of silence, which seemed to last longer than it really was, and then she spoke.

"No one can see me?"

He nodded. "No one can see you."

It was still another moment before he heard her undress, and then another before he heard the shower water run. There was a small catch of breath as she adjusted the water temperature, and then the uneven sounds of water falling over the contours of the girl beneath the shower nozzle.

Grimmjow's jaws clenched. He knew those contours, the curves that the water would follow. He'd studied them in detail before letting his presence become known that rainy night in her apartment.

It had started as a game, skirting her in Karakura Town as he practiced his new skill at remaining undetected to the spiritually aware. He'd followed her, watched her, sat in her very bedroom as she lay unsleeping on her bed in the hot, thick of night.

There was no influence in seeming to be powerless in Hueco Mundo. All the Espada had made every ounce of spiritual pressure known to anyone within reach. It was necessary. It ensured one's place in Aizen's echelon of Espada. There was no need to hide it.

But in the Living World, Grimmjow had learned subduing detection also had its benefits. Following Orihime without her knowledge was an accomplishment. She was savvy to an assorted spiritual strengths and had withstood some of the most powerful, shinigami and Arrancar alike.

That game of concealment had turned into something else, and he'd spent a full week watching her sleep at night before he'd decided to take her back to Hueco Mundo.

And back to Aizen.

Among other things.

Grimmjow scowled at the surveillance dome staring at him over the door.

"Can we be heard?" Orihime's voice floated out amid the water from the shower.

He unlocked his scowl. "No."

There was the snap of a cap. "Not at all?"

"Not at all."

The smell of lavender filled the air beginning to warm with condensation in the small rooms. Grimmjow glanced back to the opening of the doorway. He could see a few sprinkles of water bounce onto the floor out of the shower in absence of a curtain or door.

"After Aizen-sama is finished with me," she said, voice lowering, "will he let me go back home?"

"No." Grimmjow wanted to retort something at her, put any thought of _home_ out of her mind, but he didn't. "You're hoping Ichigo Kurosaki will come for you."

He heard her stop moving, the sound of the water simply running off her.

"Don't waste your time hoping for that, Orihime," he said, his tone lacking the cutting edge he'd meant for the words. He ignored the dome in the ceiling, glancing to the opening of doorway beside him. "Last time Aizen wanted your shinigami friends to come for you, but not now. That's why the Wailing is there."

"You said that was to keep the Hollows away," she said, her voice sounding small at first, then bolder. "You said it keeps them -"

"It keeps the weak ones away, but it makes the stronger ones curious," he told her. "Aizen wants the stronger ones to come here so he can test them. Recruit them for his new army."

She resumed washing, the scent of lavender growing stronger. "But the Wailing has nothing to do with the shinigami."

Grimmjow sighed, tasting something in the damp air, wondering if it was the scent of the shampoo she was using or just her. "The Wailing camouflages the buzzing hum you heard beneath it. That's the reiatsu disabler. It cuts out any shinigami power. Well, significantly reduces it, anyway," he clarified. "Aizen doesn't think it can be heard, and it can't, by most."

"But you can hear it."

He nodded. "And so can you. But you can never let Aizen know that. Don't let anyone know that, Orihime."

"I won't," she said slowly. "But Aizen-sama is still part shinigami, isn't he?"

"Part, yes."

"Doesn't it affect him, too?"

Grimmjow was surprised she'd put that part together so quickly. "Yes. That's why he has to leave occasionally to replenish himself."

The sounds of vigorous scrubbing was heard behind him, and Grimmjow edged to the corner of the divider, watching again the few drops of water splash outside the stall.

"So, he's not fully ... at full ..."

"Strength," he finished for her when she paused for too long. "His hypnosis and illusions don't work. The underlying hum works against him. He doesn't know I know, so he thinks I don't know he's not at optimum power." He cleared his throat. "But he's still very powerful. Don't think he's not."

She sighed. "I understand," she said, sounding preoccupied, her voice weakening again.

He knew where her thoughts were. Where they always were. He heard her choke back a soft sound. "You don't smile anymore when you think of him," he said after a few moments of no sound except the water raining down and her sniffles. "You cry. Don't waste your time over him."

Grimmjow wished he'd bit the words back before saying them, but they were out. She didn't say anything, only finished washing and shut the water off.

He crossed his arms over his chest, muttering curses beneath his breath as he heard her dry off and dress. "Just leave the towel there," he said after a long moment of silence.

The rooms were damp and warm, the air too moist to breathe comfortably. It seemed to him she was taking an eternity to dress.

She finally emerged around the corner of the wall. The sage green material fell in gentle folds around her, the simple sleeping dress dropping to her ankles beneath the sleeveless top, the rounded neckline modest at her chest. The pink from the heat of the shower was still on her cheeks, her hair combed but wet, and she immediately blushed brighter at the bit of grin he didn't suppress.

With a movement that nearly swiped his mask, she hurriedly pulled on the matching green overcoat she carried and tied it tightly at her waist with the black sash.

"Isn't it too warm for that?" he asked, half tempted to punch out the dome over the door.

She didn't smile as her eyes dropped from his to his chest, but there was the hint of one on her lips. "Yes."

For a moment he considered taking a different route back to her room, or maybe even a departure.

He decided it was too risky. Yet.

She fought down the rest of her blush and looked to his face.

"You'll go back to your room now," he said, watching her fingers twist a strand of wet hair that fell over her shoulder. "Your supper should be there soon."

She nodded.

* * *

**Authors' Note: **_Thank you for reading and reviewing!_


	9. Reawakening II

The scene below Orihime in the arena pit was becoming familiar. She didn't like it any more than she had the first time Aizen had invited her to accompany him on one of Grimmjow's culling sessions of the newly recruited Arrancar, but she held her tongue against protesting.

Within the six-part divisions were Grimmjow and the last of a set of five recruits. Three had fallen already to mere swordplay under the Sexta's tutelage, as Aizen liked to term the intense sessions, and were slumped bleeding against the sharp jagged onyx walls.

Orihime's fingernails had dug into the rail running around the pit's balcony perimeter as the sets had been waged, something she knew Aizen had noticed.

Her fingers relaxed slightly as the last recruit stepped back from a pause in Grimmjow's attack. He was a bloodied form, human in appearance, every bit as tall, but a little thinner built than Grimmjow, and lacking in any finesse, his movements with the sword still clumsy. She knew the recruit's name was Santrous, one of the top two recruits in strength and intelligence. She also knew Aizen was particularly interested in him.

"Enough," Aizen finally called from her side, his eyes on the last remaining figures battling below them.

Orihime saw Grimmjow and Santrous look their way, both combatant's eyes on Aizen.

"Santrous has proven his place in the final stage," Aizen said to Grimmjow. "He and Lene will advance." He looked to one of the fallen recruits at the wall. He was a shorter Arrancar, his temple and shoulder bleeding freely. Aizen nodded to him. "Number Eighteen, too. Those three will contend for the top two spots in the next round."

Below her Orihime heard Santrous mutter something, but the words weren't clear from her distance. She saw Grimmjow turn to him, his grip tightening around his sword's hilt as he said something in return.

Her attention shifted to Aizen as he leaned to her ear. "Tomorrow will be our final culling," he said, watching her recoil a few inches as he spoke.

Orihime made a steeled effort at holding her posture. It wasn't the usual spiritual fluctuation from him that made her want to move, but sheer repulsion. "Oh?" she said meekly, her fingers tightening on the rail in front of her.

"You won't be there," he said, eyes moving to her lips as she pursed them into a line. "You've seen enough the last few days to know what I am accomplishing, Orihime. You're place in all this will be much more than to patch back together my top line." He watched her eyes widen slightly. He smiled, a feature that lent no warmth to his words. "Your time in the Recovery room is very valuable to me, and I hope that soon you'll ally yourself wholly to our future."

Before she could sort through what his words could mean, he straightened again, looking down at Grimmjow awaiting further instructions.

"I understand you, as a Living healer, have less appetite for some of the details of your position here than I hoped," Aizen continued, eyes sharpening on Grimmjow as he saw the Espada's attention go to Orihime. "But broken shinigami are no longer in your future. Here your unique abilities can be rewarded according to your willingness."

She frowned, returning Grimmjow's stare from below. Aizen's words remained trapped in her head as he spoke more to the Espada and few conscious recruits in the pit. She moved mechanically at Aizen's side as he dismissed the surviving Arrancar in the arena and took her out into the hall.

She knew he was talking, but heard little of what he actually said. It was all the white noise and smoke that she'd heard for the last few days. She wasn't sure how long she'd been there, but all of his words had begun to sound the same.

Her life had settled into a pattern, one structured around Aizen's whims and Grimmjow's escorts through the labyrinth of corridors in the compound under construction. Aizen referred to it as a palace, but Orihime never considered it as such. All the halls looked the same, the only spots she could differentiate were few, usually by cracks in the floor or walls or lower-powered lighting overhead. She hadn't seen a window in days, except for the grayed-over ones in Aizen's meeting room.

Grimmjow joined them at the next corner intersection of halls, his piercing stare on Orihime before leveling on Aizen with his typical contained loathing.

"We're moving up the final culling," Aizen said as they continued on, seeming oblivious to the tolerance on his second in command. "Who do you consider the strongest?"

Orihime kept her eyes before her, but felt Grimmjow fall into step at her side. It was their usual order if they accompanied Aizen anywhere, and she let her steps slow until she was back out of the crossfire of their conversation.

"Santrous," Grimmjow said, eyes shifting to where Orihime was now lagging half a step behind.

Aizen nodded. "Make sure he loses to the second strongest in the finals tomorrow."

Grimmjow scowled as they moved down the hall. "Lene is second strongest, but you want him to win tomorrow against Santrous?"

"Precisely."

Orihime looked between the men, Grimmjow's suspicions matching the gleam of methodical planning in Aizen's face. She sensed Grimmjow wanted to look back at her, but he didn't. He turned to face the hall before them again.

"You want Lene to take a fall?"

"No. I want Santrous damaged tonight," Aizen said simply. "After he and Lene and Number Eighteen are healed by our sister Orihime here, I want you to take Santrous on for a little extra work. Injure him enough to put the odds in Lene's favor."

Orihime kept her eyes on the corridor before them, her mind flipping between reasons Aizen might have for his new manipulations.

"I want them at their best for the next round of training after tomorrow," Aizen said as they turned a corner to yet another hall. "I want the best out of them, and if Santrous feels inferior, it'll make him that much hungrier. You should understand that, Jaegerjaquez."

Orihime saw the jaw muscles behind Grimmjow's mask tighten, saw his hand bunch into a fist near his katana hilt. He said nothing, only nodded, attention before them.

She followed, nearly afraid to listen in on their conversation about the impending final, decisive battle between the three recruits the following day. She nearly didn't stop walking in time when Aizen halted at the next intersection of halls and looked to her.

"You may take our sister back to her quarters for her noon meal," he said to Grimmjow, his eyes falling over her face as she awaited his departure. There was a slight darkening in his eyes, something she'd seen more lately, something that made her flesh crawl at the sight. "After that she may heal the recruits and you can revisit them this evening for a brief bout. Only Santrous is to be fully wounded, Grimmjow," Aizen emphasized, looking back to the Espada. "You may give Lene a token injury, but not enough to put the odds in Santrous' favor."

"I know what you want done," Grimmjow said tightly. He looked to Orihime, seeing the unveiled discomfort in her face. "I'll take her to her room."

Aizen nodded.

Once returned to her room, a Drone appeared with Orihime's lunch, and the bland meal ensued. She was grateful that Grimmjow usually stayed for the meal, even if he didn't eat or add much conversation on some days.

It was better than being alone. The Drone who delivered her meals and clothes was the same one who met them at the shower, Orihime thought, and the vaguely female form hadn't spoken once. In fact, she'd never seen any of them speak.

It had become a routine, with Grimmjow collecting her in the morning, the breakfast of nearly tasteless grains and a pureed mystery fruit and tea, and then either meeting with Aizen for more tea and his inevitable speech about his plans for his new recruits or immediately meeting with the Szayels for whatever they had lined up for her.

Usually it consisted of a few hours in the Recovery room where Orihime undid Grimmjow's handiwork in the sparring practice pit from the night before. Aizen always gave the wounded a night to think about their injuries inflicted by the Sexta before any healing was done. She knew it was a planned move by Aizen to let the maimed recruits fester over their place in his hierarchy - should they be chosen to be healed, instilling the reward system early in their programming.

It made her wonder more about the original Espada and how they had been ranked by Aizen.

The days she didn't meet with Aizen directly she was taken by Grimmjow to the lab for a day with the Szayels. She still couldn't tell them apart, relying instead on their attitudes. There was no mistaking One's arrogance, or Grimmjow's reactions to him.

"Aren't you hungry?"

Orihime's thoughts broke from musing over her new life at Hueco Mundo to Grimmjow's voice. She looked up from toying with the flavorless mound of rice in the bowl before her on the tray to him in the chair beside the couch. "Not so much."

He sighed half a growl, eyes narrowing on her. "You eat less every day, Orihime. If you make yourself sick, you'll have to see the Szayels about nutrition. You don't want that."

She shook her head quickly, a small leap of fear making her heart rate quicken. She attempted a timid smile. "Can we walk today?"

He nodded, his stare relaxing more on her. "It's just the same halls. Nothing new to look at."

She picked at a few grains of rice. She'd already eaten the peas and slivers of carrots out of the bowl and the rice held little taste. Most of her meals held little taste, in fact. "I haven't seen outside in ... since I've been here."

Grimmjow stood up, his frustration with her leisure meal culminating suddenly. "There's nothing to see outside. You know that. Sand and sky."

She nodded. "It would still be nice to see out. Occasionally." She made herself take another bite, chewing methodically.

He watched her eat. The walks had been her idea three days ago, over a week into her new captivity. They weren't much, simple strolls amid the maze of corridors until her hair dried after her evening shower before he returned her to her room for a late supper. He thought she'd be tired after the long hours in the lab and Recovery room healing half a dozen or more injured recruits.

But he'd agreed to the walks and she enjoyed the exercise as much as delaying going back to her room for four walls of isolation. Their conversations - her conversations, mostly - were of nothing. The first day her aimless ramblings were about food and her old life, but when she'd fallen silent on those topics the second day, Grimmjow had picked their course among the halls more carefully. There were blank spots in the surveillance and he knew where some of them were.

His attention went on her unmoving hands resting on the tray sides, her eyes on the half eaten mound of rice. "Are you finished?"

She nodded, looking to him. "Yes."

* * *

The Szayels were already gathered in the Recovery room with the wounded recruits from Grimmjow's earlier bouts. Usually Aizen scheduled Orihime to heal them the day following the fights, but this time he'd planned a tighter timeframe. Grimmjow thought he knew why.

Szayel One waited with Two near the row of cots against the wall, as most mornings and afternoons, but this time the Arrancar on the thin mattresses weren't all prone. Orihime recognized both Santrous and Lene sitting on two cots several Arrancar away from each other.

Szayel One gave her a wide leer as she entered the room with Grimmjow. "Ah, sister, your work awaits."

She nodded, looking to the other Szayel, whom she assumed was Two, his most agreeable flunky.

One looked to Grimmjow, his smile dimming. "You don't have to stay, Jaegerjaquez-san."

It was the typical greeting between the two, Orihime had learned over the last few days, and mostly followed by Grimmjow staying anyway. She tried to focus her mind on the work before her as Szayel One outlined what he wanted - what he always wanted - and what Aizen had already told her she was to do.

She knelt at the first cot where the unconscious form was covered completely with a cloth. Behind it along the all were the streamers she'd seen daily in the room. They were long, shades of taupe, most of their bottom edges moving freely in an unseen and unfelt draft. Some hung straighter, the bottom edges heavy.

"_That's how it's done_," Shunou whispered beside her ear. "_The heavy ones have the most_."

Orihime's eyes flicked to the nearest streamer that was unmoving in the draft. _Not now_, she thought to the healing sprite.

She held her hands above the wounded form beneath the cloth and summoned Shunou and Ayame's abilities. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the streamers further down the wall move. The edges ceased moving, slowly stilling as their edges weighted.

It wasn't something she'd noticed on her own, but Shunou had whispered brief notes to her on several of the past few nights. The Szayels hadn't told her how they collected information on her healing abilities, and Orihime hadn't asked. She watched another streamer cease moving as she silently repeated her kotodama.

Grimmjow watched the form beneath the cloth revive enough to move. Szayel One instructed Orihime to the next cot for Number Eighteen's injuries. The pattern was repeated until she reached Lene, who showed little interest in the Living girl, but by the time she got to Santrous, Grimmjow knew there'd be more of a reaction from the stronger recruit. He went to stand nearer to Orihime and Szayel One.

Santrous stared back at Orihime as she hesitantly stretched her hands to his shoulder. A large slice nearly severed his collar bone in two from where Grimmjow's blade had made a decidedly winning strike. His face was gaunt, small eyes watching her carefully as she kept her attention on her work. He reached for one of her wrists as her lips moved in chant.

"Not for you to touch," Szayel One said, knocking Santrous' hand away even as Grimmjow moved in.

"How long?" Santrous said, a thin smile working onto his face as Orihime's eyes flicked from him to his injury. "How long to get _rewarded_ with her for a night?"

Orihime remained focused on her work, fingers curling slightly from the injured shoulder, her eyes on the healing wound as she felt Grimmjow's hand on her back.

He closed the other hand around Santrous' throat, fingers tightening as Szayel One cleared his throat.

"Another word out of you and you won't have to worry about placing against Lene," Grimmjow growled, his grip increasing as Santrous refused to cry out.

"Jaegerjaquez-san," One said, trying to elbow his way between them. It was a cramped fit, with Orihime in position at Grimmjow's other side and the Espada not budging an inch either way.

"Jaegerjaquez-san," One snapped.

Grimmjow gave the recruit a final strangle and then dropped his hand. Orihime held her breath as she finished, part of her view of Santrous blocked by Grimmjow's arm crossing in front of her.

"Let her work," One said, chuckling a little. "Our sister," he said to Santrous, "is currently beyond your reach."

Grimmjow gave the lead researcher a lethal glare. One shrugged, smiling more as Orihime finished her process and leaned back from the cot. She straightened and quickly stepped back, vaguely noticing the taupe streamer than gently swayed at the wall.

Grimmjow glanced to the next cot where a form lay beneath a cloth. "She's done," he said to Szayel One. "The last one can wait."

Szayel nodded in agreement, his grin widening as he looked to Santrous. "A misunderstanding like that can get you seriously damaged around here," he said. "Our sister has Aizen-sama's protection and our _brother_ here will enforce that."

Orihime took a few more steps back, her hands nervously clasping each other as Grimmjow made a guttural sound in his throat. She didn't hear the low rumble of words he uttered to the recruit, but she did see the dark look covering Santrous' face.

Grimmjow took her out of the Recovery room immediately after that, and she walked quickly at his side through the halls, relieved and frightened at the same time.

Grimmjow didn't speak until they'd moved into a set of halls five minutes later, his hand resting on her shoulder over her hair as he hurried her along. He stopped her under one of the muted light fixtures, making her face him.

"You are _not_ my sister, in any manner," he said, leaning down to see her face better. She nodded and started to speak, but he wasn't finished. "I am not your _brother_, and I suggest you don't think of anyone here as brother material, Orihime. There are allies to be had, but don't trust anyone. Got that?"

She nodded quickly, swallowing the unease that his words brought up. "Allies? Here?"

He watched the words form at her lips, wishing he hadn't added the last part. He'd learned she was too hopeful, and as much as he liked the small quiver at her lips at times, he was beginning to prefer other moments with her lips. "Don't think about it," he said sternly, standing straighter. "Aizen isn't among the most loyal company anymore, but you don't trust anyone here except me."

She nodded slowly, the grim look on his face unlike his usual severity. Her gaze dropped to the floor as she focused on a crack in the tile. It was a familiar line that she'd seen on other walks after her shower as they meandered through the corridors going no place in particular before she was returned to her room for the night. It was one of the few subtle landmarks she could recognize.

She took a deep breath and looked up to him. "We can talk here?"

A grin shadowed his face at her perception. "Visual surveillance but no audio. Don't look at it," he added as he saw her tempted to peek at the smoky dome across the hall that had full view of the door where they stood. "Remember that."

She nodded.

Orihime found herself back in her room, alone, too soon that night. Grimmjow had taken her to the shower early and then sat with her - his annoyance growing at her lack of appetite - while she ate her supper.

She sat alone in her sleepwear, fidgeting slightly on the couch as the lights muted around her. She sighed, fighting the urge to call Shunou out to find out more about the streamers hanging in the Recovery room. Her stunted conversations with the perceptive sprite were too short to learn much, and after a day of healing none of the spirits were in any mood to offer more information.

Tsubaki was still wounded and sulking, and angry, and Orihime was reluctant to force much conversation from her powerful friends. She wasn't sure what Aizen's researchers were capable of, and sometimes even _thinking_ too intensely about anything made her wary.

She also knew Grimmjow had cut short their usual routine of aimless walking that evening to comply with Aizen's orders to injure Santrous before his final judging the next day.

She looked to the dome across from her that watched her every move, wondering if it could pierce her thick skull to leach her thoughts out, too. She hoped not. Not with some of the thoughts passing through her mind lately.

* * *

The meeting the next morning with Aizen was accompanied by a formal atmosphere in the long room. Orihime sat stiffly on the tall chair across from him as her tea cooled, but his attention was on Grimmjow in the chair between them, as it had been for several silent moments. Aizen's fingers held the tea cup as he gave the Espada a sharp look.

"I don't think you misunderstood my instructions, Grimmjow," he said after a long pause.

Grimmjow returned his look with a stony expression. "You wanted him injured enough to swing the favor for Lene in the finals today," the Sexta reminded. "That's what I did."

Orihime looked between them before her eyes dropped to her own tea cup.

"It was excessive," Aizen determined.

Grimmjow nodded. "Lene is weaker. If you want him to win, Santrous needed knocking down."

Aizen took his time drinking his tea. "Next time you show more restraint."

There was another pause before Grimmjow mumbled something akin to an agreement. Aizen turned his attention to Orihime.

"You won't be joining us for the final placement of the last few recruits," he told her. "This phase of their testing is over, and your duties with the Szayels will focus more on the other qualities of your healing abilities."

She nodded slightly, not comprehending exactly what he meant, but unsure she wanted clarification yet. "Yes, Aizen-sama."

"You've completed you work here well, Orihime," he said, his words bringing a swift look from her. He smiled the same smile that hid so well his true nature. "The Szayels will evaluate what they've learned from your healings and determine how best to utilize them for our service. I'll be thinking about a proper reward for your cooperation."

The terms reward and cooperation made Orihime feel ill. She knew what Santrous had meant when he'd said _reward_, and she didn't like her role in cooperation with Aizen. Not in any manner.

She nodded, feeling Grimmjow's stare on her.

Aizen's eyes narrowed on her. "No gratitude, Orihime?"

The breath caught in her lungs as Orihime made herself answer more thoroughly. "Thank you, Aizen-sama," she said in a low tone.

Grimmjow scowled at her abjectness.

Aizen nodded to him. "Take her to her room and join me for the first culling of the newest recruits before I decide the order of the current final three from this collection."

Grimmjow nodded, eyes still on Orihime.

She couldn't determine the extent of Grimmjow's disappointment as they walked the halls to her room fifteen minutes later. He was quieter than usual, hurrying her through the corridors they generally used during their more leisure walks in the evening hours after her shower.

She looked up at him, part of the mask hiding her full view of his expression. With a start she realized the little flit in her pulse shouldn't have happened. Not when she looked at her former enemy.

"Don't worry about it," he said despite her silence.

This time the jump in her pulse was for a different reason. "About ... about what?"

He turned them down another hall away from the core of the compound. "You say whatever you have to say to him, Orihime," he said, voice lowering. "It's too dangerous not to show gratitude you don't feel."

She breathed a sigh of relief, nodding. They passed an intersection of halls and two small Drones coming from the opposite way stopped and stood to one side, bowing as Grimmjow and Orihime passed.

Her eyes dropped to the thinner one of the Drones, seeing that one of the small figure's hands ended in shortened fingers that had been removed at the middle joints. Her attention flicked to the Drone's apparent female features, but the figure kept her eyes on the floor.

For a few long moments Orihime and Grimmjow walked, continuing on in what she thought was a roundabout route to her room, as it took much longer than usual when she returned from meeting with Aizen for his morning tea.

The blood in her head had run cool at the sight of the Drone's hand, a chill that crept to her spine as she walked. She looked down as Grimmjow's hand brushed hers, his hard fingers barely making contact with her own as she looked up to see his frown at her.

"I did not do that," he mumbled. "Szayel One is in charge of punishment. Discipline, as he and Aizen call it."

"What did she do?" Orihime crossed her arms in front of her chest as Grimmjow stuck his hand nearest her in his pocket.

"I don't know. Wouldn't take much."

She couldn't shake thoughts of the Drone's missing fingers as they walked through the winding halls and eventually back to her room. Grimmjow stayed through her lunch, which she ate little of with even less appetite than other days.

She tried to stretch her appetite into cooperating with her, knowing he'd leave when she'd finished eating, but the sheer movements of chewing made her want to vomit when she thought of Szayel One's idea of discipline.

Grimmjow sat in the chair kitty-corner from the couch, most of his enjoyment at watching her as she sat on the couch and ate gone as she picked with the chopsticks at her plate of bean sprouts and sesame seeds. He knew what was on her mind, and as much as he wanted to align her thoughts with his own, he instead picked a topic he knew would distract her from the Drone's hand.

"I don't see how a window would help pass the time," he said suddenly as she chased a bean sprout tip around her plate. "You know what's out there. Nothing interesting to look at."

Her expression perked up into less of a pout as she looked to him, some of the light coming back to her large eyes. "Just to see outside again would be nice," she said wistfully, smiling a little. "I've seen nothing but walls and lights since I've been here. I don't want to go out," she added, her voice falling faintly. "I mean, not unless ... unless..."

He knew where her words were going even when she didn't finish them. "I can tell you what's out there," he said, ever conscious of the shaded dome that watched over them. "In the last year Aizen's released ten batches of two to four recruits who've made the final cut out into the desert to find their spiritual strengths. They come back when they've reached a point Aizen deems placement-worthy."

"You mean, you mean like an Espada?" she asked, thoughts of the Drone's fingers evicted from her mind. "And like the lower-ranked Arrancar?"

He nodded, skirting around what he knew would be sensitive information, but pleased that she seemed less morose. "If they can demonstrate any sort of bala or cero, Aizen will let them continue to train here. If they can't do it, he passes on them."

She frowned, watching him closely. "What does he do with them?"

"If they can't repeat any progress they claim to have made," he said with a shrug, "he has them sent to containment to starve to death." He saw her face fall into a new sort of anguish. "Dammit," he muttered as her fingers gripped the chopsticks tighter, "don't worry about it, Orihime. Just finish eating."

She frowned, looking to the tangle of sprouts on her plate she was twisting into more knots. She was about to speak when Grimmjow stood up and went to the door.

She hadn't heard a knock or any other noise, but when Grimmjow opened the door a Drone stood there, its small form eclipsed by the Espada's stature.

He looked at her for a moment, waiting, and finally said, "Say something."

Orihime put her tray to her side on the couch cushion and stood up, curious to hear a Drone. She'd never heard one utter a word in her time there.

The smaller figure shifted glances between Grimmjow and Orihime a few times, and then a thin voice came from her. "You wanted to know when," she said almost inaudibly.

Grimmjow leaned closer to her. "Now? We haven't finished the finals yet. We haven't looked at the new recruits."

The Drone glanced to Orihime, unblinking as she seemed anxious. "He chose already. Two have been released. Outside." Her voice dropped lower at her fragmented information. "You wanted to know when."

He grinned despite himself. "Ready her necessities early."

There was no change in the Drone's expression, none that Orihime could determine.

The Drone bowed and turned as Grimmjow closed the door. He looked back to Orihime, his grin under control. "Aizen has made his decision without my input. He must be in dire need of revitalization to leave so early," he said, watching a mixture of confusion and uncertain relief cross her face. He remembered the ears and eyes observing them from the dome above. "It means he's unavailable for a few days."

Orihime caught the smile that wanted to form at her lips, but was unable to keep the faint glimmer of hope from her eyes. Grimmjow's words instilled more hope than she thought she'd feel at Aizen's brief departure.

He nodded at her, surprised and pleased that she seemed as eager as he was for their superior's early departure.

"Let's see about your reward, Orihime."

* * *

**Authors' Note:** _Thank you to everyone reading this story, and for the reviews, too. Rating to rise to M next chapter._


	10. Reawakening III

The following chapter is rated M for sexual content.

* * *

This time there was a lift to Orihime's steps as she walked beside Grimmjow down the echoing halls.

Aizen was gone. Absent for a few days.

Her world had changed, even slightly, and suddenly for the better for a brief time.

It wasn't as good as news to be going home, but knowing that the former shinigami captain wouldn't appear around the next hall corner put the smile back on Orihime's face.

Grimmjow noticed it.

"Damn, I haven't seen you smile in days," he muttered as they took the next set of halls.

She smiled more in response, this time with a faint blush that he'd noticed the change in her demeanor. Part of a grin lifted the side of his mouth as he looked down at her.

"Yours aren't the same as everyone else's here," he added after they'd passed a couple of Drones that stood to the side of the corridor. They bowed, and he saw Orihime's eyes go to the small figures.

She looked back to him. "Mine aren't...?"

He didn't want to utter the words, but he'd already trapped himself into an explanation. "Everyone else here smiles when they're up on someone else. Won more battles or developed a new power. You just do it because you're not as unhappy."

It was too much to say _happy_. He wasn't sure what that meant, not to a Living girl. He was quite certain happy meant something different to her than it would to an Arrancar or any other dead being.

She realized she wasn't quite unhappy. It also made her realize how much she dreaded any time in Aizen's presence. She smiled more, the dreariness of the halls seeming to be less intense. She looked up at Grimmjow. She didn't want to think about Aizen, but she was curious.

"Can we talk here?"

"Not if it's about him."

She nodded. For a few long moments they traveled the corridors, winding deeper into the compound. She didn't even try to figure out where they were anymore; the few turns and halls she did recognize were near her room and the lab, but none of the ones he led them down now looked familiar.

Until they reached another hall. Grimmjow's steps slowed, and she took the chance to study the walls and floor with more interest. She smiled slightly as his fingers edged the tips of hers briefly between their sides.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked lowly, not quite pausing as they walked.

She looked around, carefully avoiding looking at the smoky dome to the left of the hall across from the door that looked like any other door.

"No. I don't think so," she said after a moment. She frowned when his hand moved from hers.

"This is the old section of the complex," he said, not looking at anything in particular. He quickened their pace. "This part wasn't torn up in the war. Some of it's in disrepair from residual battle affects, but it's not used much since."

"Oh. It's so quiet here," she said. She could still hear the Wailing, but it didn't seem as loud, and she wondered if they were in a more interior section.

She found herself looking at the floor as she followed beside him. He didn't speak anymore until they'd woven through a few more halls. He finally stopped them at a newer section of corridor, and this time she could hear a low whir from the other side of a metal door.

He looked at her expectant face as she waited. "What do you want for a reward for pleasing Aizen?"

She frowned. "Nothing."

He chuckled. "I know that's not what you'll tell him, Orihime," he said, leaning a little closer. "Are you saying that because you mean it or because you think I want to hear it?"

"Do you want to hear that?" she said almost inaudibly. She immediately caught her breath, but she didn't take back her words – which surprised even her.

He grinned more, and this time it wasn't the lethal type that preceded a fight. He also recalled the surveillance dome behind him on the opposite wall. He opened the door beside her.

"Go in."

She turned, and then nearly squealed in delight. The door opened into a kitchen, a room half the size of the Szayels' laboratory, but well-equipped with stainless steel appliances.

"Oh, Jaegerjaquez-san," she breathed, stepping into the room as his hand prodded her shoulder. "Oh, it's ... a real kitchen?"

He nodded, closing the door behind them, sending an echo through the still, vacant room.

Orihime's eyes took in the large range, mirror-finished cooler and pantry and marble work counter. Cupboards lining the walls gave the room a homey feel that was definitely out of place in the sterile confines that were Las Noches.

She whirled around to face him so quickly he nearly took a step back. "I can cook?"

He frowned. "Uh, well -"

"Really I can?" She spun back around, clasping her hands together at her chest. "Won't he be angry? I can cook?"

Grimmjow had meant _eat_, but the light that sparked in her face was too much to deny. No one was around; Aizen's chef and the cook that prepared Orihime's meals having been relieved of duties until they were needed at the scheduled meal prep times. He couldn't see an immediate danger in affording her the small luxury, and even Aizen admitted she was due a reward.

"Do you want to?"

She nodded, smiling fuller.

"Sure. Maybe you can find something you want to eat and stop moping about having to."

"Thank you!" She turned, gaze pinpointing the closet-size cooler that was humming at one wall. "I never thought about a kitchen here before. I guess I just thought Szayel-sans made up the food. I thought maybe that was why it wasn't very good."

He shrugged, and then nodded when she looked to him, pausing with one hand on the cooler door. "Go ahead, Orihime."

She pulled open the door, eyes widening. Inside was a vast array of fresh vegetables and fruits. "So much ... But nothing grows here. I thought everything would be dead." She took a moment to inspect the bowls of berries on one shelf before moving on to ones of figs and kiwi. "Where does this all come from?"

Grimmjow moved closer as she collected three bowls and brought them to the counter. The bowls were clear glass, and the colors of the berries were a sharp contrast to the otherwise drab tones of white, beige and black that made up most of the compound, and her clothing.

"Szayel Three keeps the garden in an enclosed courtyard. Edible plants and some flowers." He shrugged, leaning his back to the counter, watching her inspect the berries. "Usually the chef prepared Aizen's meals, but since you've been here he's got an assistant. Apparently, he's not very good."

Her fingers poised over the bowl of raspberries as she looked to him. "Real cooks? Human Living people?" Part of her smile fell away. "Other Living are here?"

"No. Some of the higher Drones. Like the ones that run surveillance. A notch up on the intelligence scale." He watched her fingers hover over the berries. "You can eat them," he assured. "They're real. Szayel Three has very little scientific capacity, but he can make the plants produce."

"How many are there?" She picked up a red berry and smelled it. The aroma was deep and fragrant, perfectly ripened.

"Szayels? Four."

The very scent of the berry made her mouth water, and she hoped it tasted half as good as it smelled. She bit her lower lip as she hesitated. "Is there surveillance here?"

"No. Nothing."

She smiled at the berry and then ate it. The fruit was sweet, every bit as flavorful as she could hope. She munched it slowly, fingers grazing over the berries. "Will he be angry?"

Grimmjow growled. "He can be angry with _me_," he told her. "He can't expect you to perform to the best of your abilities if you're denied everything."

She nodded, sighing. She didn't want to think any farther than that, not about other kitchens, or other foods she no longer could eat, or too many other memories. She bit into another berry, this one a little tart. The third was sweeter. She'd eaten half a dozen raspberries, her eyes already devouring the blueberries and strawberries in the other bowls before she wanted to try a new flavor.

She picked a large red berry. "Do you like raspberries?"

He shook his head. "Never had one."

"You should," she said through a mouthful. She held it up to him. He shook his head again.

She ate it and chose a few strawberries. "These are very good," she said, picking the stems off and eating two. She held another one to him. "Try it."

He looked from the round berry between her fingers to her eyes. He took it and ate it, hull and all. He made a face, chewing through the stem and leaves.

"Oh... Oh," she said, face crumpling into awkwardness. "I should have ..."

He forced a swallow. "You think these are good?"

She found another berry. "I should have taken the stem off first."

"I thought they were supposed to be sweet." He wasn't sure what exactly sweet was, but it couldn't have been the tartness he'd just eaten.

"Was it sour?" Before he could answer, she hulled and ate half the next strawberry, decided it was sweet enough, and offered it to him. "This one is better."

"I don't have to eat," he reminded.

"You do other things you don't have to do." Her cheeks flushed pink and she looked quickly to the blueberries awaiting her attention.

He took the berry and ate it, finding it much more palatable. He was about to say something on a more personal level when the door opened, making them both look there in surprise.

A slim figure with slight male features looked to each of them as he crossed the floor. He was dressed identically to all the Drones Orihime had seen, except he wore a circle insignia at his left breast. If he was surprised to see the Living girl in the kitchen, it didn't show in his face.

Grimmjow clenched his teeth at the interruption, eyes narrowing on the Drone who stopped a few feet from them.

"This is the cook," he told Orihime as she watched the newcomer with wide eyes. "He's the one that prepares your meals, so if you have any preferences, make them now."

Her mouth dropped open a little as she looked to the tall Drone. "Oh, it's really no problem ... I, they're fine."

"The hell they are," Grimmjow growled, watching the cook that had worked up a faint frown. "Tell him how you want your meals made. Better yet," he added, setting his palm on the edge of the counter between them, "show him what you want to eat. No more of this bland shit he's been passing off."

"I have followed the formulas," the cook said in a meek, almost feminine tone as he watched her closely. "Your meals are unsatisfactory?"

"Oh, they're ... they're a little..." she said hesitantly, looking to Grimmjow for some indication.

It took another five minutes of coaxing and a little threatening to the cook before Grimmjow was able to kick the momentum into what he was hoping to be less intrusive. An hour later and several dirty dishes and pots, and the kitchen was heavily scented with cardamom, ginger and cinnamon, and Orihime had eaten two large bowls of flavored rice. It was more than he'd seen her eat in a single day since she'd been there.

He'd seen her cook before, watched her at work at the catering prep tables in the Living World, and still he wondered at the point of rearranging food items into other food items. It didn't seem necessary, but it made her smile more, and he was finding new contentment in that.

It was a full two hours later that he got her out of the kitchen and to the shower facility he'd claimed as hers. She talked constantly, no matter what hall they were in, and nearly every word was about food or eating.

"... but I'm glad he wasn't angry," she said as they paused at the facilities door. "I wasn't trying to be picky. I really haven't been hungry until now. The rice was good, and there were a lot of spices and flavorings to choose from. I wanted to use them all, but -"

"You nearly did," the said, watching her eyes light at the thought of cinnamon and ginger. "Cook should be able to prepare your meals better now."

She smiled, looking down to his hand on the door to the facilities. "Thank you," she said, catching herself before saying his name. When he didn't turn the latch, she looked back up at him.

Grimmjow glanced down the hall to where a small Drone stood at the juncture to another corridor.

Orihime looked there. It was a female Drone, but she couldn't determine which one.

"What is it?" Grimmjow asked the small figure.

She hesitantly approached them, nothing in her face showing any emotion, but her slow steps telling more. She looked to Orihime, and then to Grimmjow.

"Say something," he said.

She bowed slightly. "I am scheduled for punishment."

Orihime felt suddenly ill at the remark, but Grimmjow was unfazed. "Now?"

"In an hour."

He nodded and opened the door. He pushed Orihime through it when she didn't move.

Inside the small room before the shower she stopped, looking anxiously to him. "Did she do something wrong?"

"No," he said with a sigh. "Szayel One schedules punishment during Aizen's absences to try new disciplinary methods on the lower Drones."

She shook her head. "Can you stop it? Isn't she the one who -"

"I can't stop it." He read the look swiftly crossing her face. "He can't hurt her, Orihime, if that's what concerns you."

"But she's – He can't? Are they without pain?"

"No, not usually. The ability to feel pain is one of the most important parts of a Drone's structure," he said, moving her closer to the shower where he saw her caddy and change of clothing already hanging on a hook. He looked back to her worried face. "Don't worry about her, Orihime. She can't feel pain. That's why she's here. She doesn't know how to react."

She shook her head.

"Drones who are unable to react to pain are sent to containment," he said hastily. "If there's no way to punish them, they're considered worthless and disposed of."

"She escaped?" she asked hopefully.

"She was listed for containment, but I never took her there." His eyes fell over the white of her coat. "Get your shower done and stop worrying about her. Szayel can't hurt her."

He left then, and she heard the door open and close to the hall, but didn't turn to look at it. He was right; there were allies to be had, even ones who didn't know of Aizen's former power or fall. She smiled a little, and then unfastened her top. She doubted Aizen would trust anyone – Arrancar or otherwise – ever again. Grimmjow was playing a risky game.

She ran the shower and quickly washed, listening to sounds of his return. "Will she be okay?" she asked before he could speak.

She could hear his sigh over the water raining around her.

"She's not your concern, Orihime. Get done so we can get out of here."

She frowned. "Is he back already?"

"No."

She didn't ask any more. She quickly finished washing and dried her hair for several long moments, squeezing the thick towel around the long strands until little water remained. She stopped as soon as she realized what she was doing. If she dried it too much she'd have less of a walk, and Grimmjow would take her back too soon to her room. She liked their walks, even if they occasionally crossed Aizen's path, and Grimmjow had to explain why they were about the halls. It had only happened a few times on the first couple of evenings, and Aizen didn't seem to care. Since then Grimmjow had taken different halls.

She pulled the sage green sleeping dress over her head and flicked her hair out of the collar before shrugging into the matching overcoat and tied it with the black sash at her waist, wishing, as always, she had all her usual nightwear.

A moment later she was with Grimmjow back in the tall, silent halls. He took a course they'd taken before, and while she still couldn't have found her way around alone, there was a bit of familiarity about the corridors.

He stopped at one of the doors in a hall, a shaded dome watching them opposite. She looked from the door to him, unable to see the dome behind him on the ceiling near the wall.

"Do you know where you are?"

For a moment it seemed like more than the usual question, and she shook her head. He grinned.

She frowned in confusion, and then looked to the floor. She'd learned to recognize a few places in the endless corridors by landmark cracks in the floor and walls, and this time she found a familiar crack lining a tile.

She looked to him quickly. "We've been here before?"

He nodded and reached behind her to open the door. It was unlocked by a keypad on the wall, like many other doors she'd seen, but this time the interior of the room was not familiar.

He pushed her in and closed the door behind them.

She felt it immediately in the dimly lit room, a heavy warm rush that invaded her skin, something pressing on her without being tangible. She looked around slowly in the low light that came through the high, wide windows running along two of the walls that joined at a corner. Out them was only darkness.

It was unlike the other rooms she'd been to, more spacious and without the sterility of most of the complex. A low table was to one side with a few cushions around it, and to her right another split-level rose, most of it blocked by a row of granite balusters that lined the top half of a short wall. Beyond that was a large platform spread with fabric and pillows tossed to the side against a wall.

She looked to him quickly, recognizing the heavy spiritual pressure she'd felt when she had entered. "You live here?"

He nodded. "This is part of the old section, too."

She gave a more thorough search of the room, blinking a few times as comprehension made its way through her mind. "I never thought about that before. I mean, where you, sleep." Actually, she _had_ a few times.

He chuckled, removing the sword from his sash. "It's not as improved as the newer parts of the complex," he said with no real concern, watching her eyes go to a window. "I prefer it."

"You have windows." She smiled at the panels that appeared simply as black rectangles lining the tall walls.

He didn't understand her enthusiasm. "It's just darkness, Orihime. Dark and sand."

"Oh, yes ... I know." She signed and looked down as he took her wrist.

"You want to see outside?"

She nodded, following him to and up the few steps to the raised level. "I can?"

He nodded, leading her to the far wall where the dark windows rose above the bed. "There's nothing to see, but you can look."

She halted beside him when he stopped, looking to the wide windows too tall for her to see out of. She was still looking at the filmy moonlight that seeped through the windows when Grimmjow's hands went to her waist and lifted her to stand on the bed.

A startled yelp came from her, but it was quickly cut short when he turned her to look out the window. Her feet found better balance on the mattress as her attention went to the thick glass.

It was dark, the sand landscape outside Las Noches a collection of wide sloping dunes that dissolved into each other, only interrupted by an occasional spare-branched tree raising like skeletons to break the nightfall. The moon was its typical arch, emanating no warmth, simply austere magnificence.

"It's beautiful," she said with a sigh, eyes roaming the view out the window – her first since she'd been encased in Aizen's domain. "Like an etching."

"How can you say that, Orihime?" He frowned as she looked to him. "You've been here long enough to know what this place is. There's no beauty here. That," he said, pointing to the filmy light of the window, "isn't like the trees you're used to seeing. They aren't really trees at all."

"I know," she said gently, nodding. "It's still ... well, if I didn't know everything that I do, I'd think it's beautiful."

He nodded. "Sit down."

She looked around at the blanket stretched over the mattress. In the dim light she couldn't determine if it was gray or tan, or if the pillows were colored or gray as well, but she sank to her knees and sat back on her heels, watching as he removed his shirt.

She didn't say the first words that came to her mind. Instead she was glad for the poor lighting as a blush reached her cheeks. He sat beside her, looking to each of her eyes, as they seemed to have lost color in the moonlight.

"You don't need all this here."

His hands moved to the black sash at her waist, loosening the knot as her fingers instinctively met his.

"You're not going to be shy again, are you?"

She shook her head, eyes shifting to the door that was barely visible between the balusters. "No one can see us?"

"There's no surveillance here. No one's coming in," he said, pulling the tie loose and freeing if from her waist. He let it drop to the side of the bed. One hand slid around to her back, pulling her closer as she put her fingers to his chest.

He wasn't cold, his skin even faintly warm, something that Orihime found surprising, knowing what she did about assorted beings that'd passed on from life. She let her hand travel to his shoulder, blushing anew at the fine cut of his skin in the light of the moon, feeling the taut muscle below her fingers as she settled closer on her knees. He pushed her hair from her face where it hung free without her hair clips, taking on a burnished copper color in the dim light. She smiled, watching his hand pull a few strands to her shoulder before moving to her hip.

She looked up as his hair brushed the top of her head, her eyes closing as he slowly kissed her lips. There was an initial hesitancy in her kiss, those undetermined moments before he felt her move closer, her knee rest against his hip and her body press to his.

Grimmjow knew the limits of a Living soul, and usually pushed past them, but the vulnerable form in his embrace yielded willingly. She still smelled some of ginger and berries, something that he discovered he liked immensely as hip hand rounded over the curve of her hip.

She opened her eyes as he pulled back, looking to where his hand remained around her, slowly roving up her hip and back down.

"You don't have any panties on, Orihime."

He grinned when he said it, which only added a fresh blush to her face, and she nodded, her arm at his shoulder tightening as she giggled.

"The Drone never brings me any for after my shower," she explained. "She brings them in the morning with my clothing for the day. I wish she brought them in the evening."

He looked down as his hand traced over her hip to the hem of the green material bunched at her knee. "I like it better this way," he said, letting his hand slide beneath the sleepwear to her thigh. "Why didn't you tell me you didn't have any?"

He felt her knee move against his hip as she shook her head, fingers moving to his jaw, light on the edge of the mask there.

"She always brings them in the morning." She was going to explain further, but his mouth was back on hers.

It was the last thing Orihime expected to be doing in Hueco Mundo, with anyone, under any circumstance, but she was. The bone mask beneath her fingers seemed as natural as any flesh, the arms around her in tight hold more welcome than she thought they should be as she let her shyness slip away among the sheets of Grimmjow's bed.

She'd learned from their few past intimate moments, now knowing more how to move with him, knew he'd keep her at points of pleasure until she was breathless, and let memories of other moments pass away. This time when her fingers slipped beneath the hair at the nape of his neck he didn't stop her; this time the response was a renewed grasp on her that she was certain would leave marks. She also didn't care.

Grimmjow hadn't known what those fragile fingertips on his scalp could do, didn't think they'd be capable of eliciting feelings. Emotions were frail little things that colored and clouded judgment, nuances that impaired decisions, something for which he had no need. But those tender fingers on him and the soft lips that were buried against his neck as she whispered his name made him rethink some of those useless nuisances.

He felt her clench internally, her body tense within his arms as he responded in kind as she clung to him with every strength. The low tremble that began deep within her grew and spread through her in welcome bliss.

Even the Wailing had subsided for that hour, and Orihime let her eyes remain shut as Grimmjow's arms loosened around her. She sunk into the sheets and a few pillows that had worked their way nearer. Her heartbeat was almost painfully fast, her skin hot and damp, and this time she couldn't blame it on the sweltering weather. Her breathing remained just short of gasping as he braced his elbows to either side of her, his fingers picking a wilted strand of hair from her face, his face barely visible in the moonlight.

She couldn't stop her desperate need for air, and it didn't help matters when he kissed her lips for a long moment as he pulled out of her. She sighed, swallowing as he leaned back to see her better.

Her weary arms were heavy on his back as she let her hands follow up to his shoulders.

"I can't keep you here all the time," he said lowly, not saying the name neither of them wanted to hear. "But you're staying tonight."

She nodded, eyes closing as he moved off top of her and lay down beside her. She sighed, feeling as if her skin was on fire. For a moment she tried to rein in her heartbeat, and then shifted to her side to see him better.

Grimmjow's eyes moved over the silhouette her curves made against the pale sheets. A foreign surge ran through him, unlike the rush he felt before a fight, something different.

"I want to stay," she whispered, eyes closing as her hand closed around the pillow beneath her.

It took him a moment to decide what to say, and by then she was sleeping.

He sighed, looking back to the plain ceiling above them.

It was better left unsaid.

* * *

**Authors' Note:** _Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed!_


	11. Temperance I

The Hyogoku was a brutal master. It left the weak, left them willing and wanting as it sought out better quality, sought out a host that could satiate its demands of perfection.

It left its previous shell of a host wanting.

In Aizen's core of existence, experience with the Hyogoku had only awakened in him the realization of lacking. He was lacking in strength, in knowledge, in all the elements that were needed to retain the Hyogoku.

But it left him with souvenirs, and that was all he had to live on now. It was enough, and if not quite enough, at least a start.

He sat waiting in the inner chambers of his private quarters, waiting until what had made him a shinigami was replaced, waiting for what set him apart from other shinigami to renew. It took a few days to attain, and it was the last stage, at which he was currently, that made him anxious to reclaim the floor in Las Noches.

Keeping the Wailing as a defense against Soul Society came at a price that he alone had to pay.

It was a high price, and he was willing to pay it. Sacrificing his once shinigami rights in pursuit of the Hyogoku left him with a renewed hunger for them. That was one thing the artificial entity _did_ leave him – the attraction for the better things in any number of lives.

He missed his old habits, the pastimes that had given him joy, some of the things that some would call beauty. Certainly Momo Hinamori would call them beauty.

The elite Drone to his left bowed lower. "If you are ready, Aizen-sama."

His old captain's haori was more than a souvenir; it was enough to restore parts of his reiryoku, and with those simple parts as a base he could rebuild the ribbons of reiatsu lost to the Wailing. In turn he could perform the illusions his bankai enabled him.

But it wasn't for long. The give and take of the Wailing came at a cost. It sapped him as much as any Soul Reaper that happened to Las Noches. There'd been none since the War, and he preferred to leave the Wailing off, but that wasn't something he could do, especially now that he'd taken one of the more missable Livings into custody. Her presence had come with unexpected nuances.

He hadn't noticed them before, not so much, anyway, but the soft appeal of those large eyes and her malleable spirit hadn't gone ignored this time.

The Drone held up the white haori by the shoulders.

Aizen stood and took it. Simply shrugging into the coat was more than symbolic. It was the equivalent to adrenalin to a human, a reenergizing that pulled his shinigami powers back out of his core where he'd sequestered them to make room for the Hyogoku, who was a greedy master.

It also gave him an excruciating headache, but that was expected as the magnitude of all the illusions he'd once kept up in Soul Society rushed back into him. Some zanpakutou powers were charitable: he knew Abarai's spoke to him in times of need; he knew Ukitake's argued with him about his illness; and he knew Hitsugaya's was as no-nonsense as its master.

Kyoka Suigetsu alone took all his efforts, and having them thrust back into him in an instant was more forceful than even Aizen cared to have done. He only did so when the remnant strains of the Hyogoku were weak, which led to him wanting to take up parts of his former lives.

Those desires were becoming more difficult to ignore lately. Simple life and pleasures became easier to appreciate. The shell that shinigami depletion and Hyogoku abandonment had left him made him want again. At least in his old captain's coat he was able to fill out one part of what he'd once been.

He straightened the white material around him, flipping a turned sleeve at the cuff. His reprieves into his inner chambers halted the gnawing the Hyogoku had left when it had emptied of him. The balance between shinigami and mere casing for the Hyogoku was not an easy place to be, but he'd tried to keep the balance.

"Another round of kanzen saimen?"

Aizen looked to the second elite Drone that attended him. Compartmentalization had always been important in Las Noches, and never more so than now. The Drone was a few levels down from a Szayel, but it had the vital knowledge to reproduce the basics of his personal reiryoku, and that was all he needed it to do.

He nodded to the unnumbered researcher. "Another dose." He turned to the Drone who'd held his coat while he had awaited the last transfusion of potent reiryoku. "Have you any new footage for me?"

The Drone shook his head. "No, Aizen-sama."

For a moment the look on Aizen's face hovered between disappointment and suspicion. Both were subtle, as he'd practiced them for decades, rivaling even Gin Ichimaru for keeping an unreadable expression. Then he nodded, sitting back in the chair. It was a comfortable chair, deep-seated and firm, the lights around them lower than most kept throughout rest of Las Noches. His chef had already been in to bring his final meal of the day, and to give him any tidbits of information that happened in the kitchen.

He placed his arm on the chair's rest, awaiting the next dose. Orihime's presence in the compound was not without difficulty. She brought with her residual shinigami powers, mostly from Kurosaki, and shedding her of them allowed her to be more tolerable.

But as much as Aizen wanted her devoid of outside shinigami influence, he still wanted her to be receptive of them. That was something the Szayels didn't understand, something he wasn't willing to clarify for them.

Grimmjow didn't understand either, but Aizen knew the Espada understood the girl's frailties. The Sexta couldn't appreciate those weaknesses, he knew, even in a female, but he understood them well enough to know to keep the Szayels in line. He closed his eyes as the Drone administered the vial of kanzen saimen into his wrist.

He knew Grimmjow had taken Orihime to the kitchen and let her speak with the cook about her meals. He also knew he took her to his quarters, and had for the last three days, and for long periods of time.

He'd seen it on the surveillance scans, the footage of her standing with the Sexta at the door of his quarters in the old part of the complex. It had been brought to his attention the day before. He'd watched it carefully. Orihime had no defenses for hiding her emotions, he knew. Anything on her mind or in her heart was on her face.

Unfortunately, her face had been turned to the door of Grimmjow's quarters each time. Aizen could see only the back of her, and that had told him little. Her head was lowered each time, a few nods when Grimmjow spoke to her. But there had been once that Aizen had seen her profile. He'd watched that part of the surveillance loop several times.

She'd looked up at Grimmjow, not with fear, but simply watchfulness. When she came out of the room she was with him, too, and those times she kept her face lowered, turned from the dome across the hall. She'd nodded a few times to something Grimmjow said, and then went with him down the hall, to her own room, Aizen knew, where she always left into the back of her quarters to the toilet. When she came back out she always immediately crawled into her small bed and pulled the blanket over her head.

It told Aizen little.

"Where are they now?" he asked aloud, looking to the elite Drone that stood a few paces away, watching.

"The girl is at his quarters, Aizen-sama," it said.

"How long this time?"

"Three hours, Aizen-sama."

It didn't matter too much to Aizen what number the Drone gave him; any amount of time was too much when he couldn't account for activities that happened behind that locked door. Perhaps his instructions hadn't been clear enough for the Sexta.

"Send for the Drone that attends Jaegerjaquez's room."

"Yes, Aizen-sama."

Aizen looked down at his arm as the area around the infusion prick grew numb. "Another," he said, flexing his fingers.

The researcher looked to him with as much surprise as a Drone could summon. "Four, Aizen-sama?"

He nodded. "Another."

* * *

Orihime didn't want to get out of bed, or move, or disrupt the strong arm draped over her waist. She'd never thought much about the Espadas' housing in Las Noches when she was there last, but it had become a great refuge for her the last few days. She opened her eyes to the low light of Grimmjow's room, the shades of grays and sandy tans only blocks of the rooms' divisions from their haven of his bed.

He lay behind her, his arm over hers, anchoring her close along his muscular torso. She could feel him breathe on the back of her neck, making her smile as she looked at his hand clasping around hers on the mattress near the pillow.

She let her fingers curl from his, looking with interest at his larger hand shadowed around hers. She turned her hand and let her thumb draw across his palm, feeling his breathing change on her neck as he woke.

He always let her sleep after sex, and was always there when she woke up. She knew he left for a while the first night, and he'd told her later that he'd went to check the halls for any trouble. There'd been none.

Her fingertip moved over his half open palm. Fine lines crossed it, faint scars from his fights with – at times – friends of hers, where he'd cut his own flesh with his zanpakutou to enable his gran rey cero. Her finger followed one line that crossed his palm, his skin hard beneath hers, making her wonder again at his abilities to change his flesh at will.

She turned beneath his arm, liking the way his bare body felt on hers under the sheets. He was already awake, watching her nestle closer to him. For a moment the usual fears came back to her, the terror that his image instigated in her since she'd first seen him, but then it flashed away as more recent contact with him crowded out old memories.

"I have to take you back soon," he said, his arm around her gathering her close until her face was merely inches from his. "He comes back tomorrow."

Instinctively Orihime's arms came about his waist. He didn't object as he once had, something she saw as progress of a sort. She sighed, letting one knee turn to rest against his hip. "When will he go away again?"

His other hand went to her face, covering half her cheek as his fingers spread over her eye, watching her blink slowly. "Ten days, usually. Sometimes sooner." He pushed a strand of soft auburn hair from her forehead. "You can't say anything about this. About being here like this," he said needlessly. "Don't trust anyone."

"I won't."

He knew she was going to ask more, but he didn't want that word – that name – in his bed, so he responded to the knee nudging at his side.

It was another hour before Orihime left Grimmjow's quarters. It was a little later than the usual hour that he returned her back to her room, but not by much. It was a quiet walk back. He'd already told her, as he had the last few times, not to deny being in his quarters.

"He'll know," he'd said, watching her face register pale horror. "You can't lie to him; everything shows in your face, Orihime. Don't deny it, but don't tell him you want to be here, either."

She'd nodded, looking more apprehensive than ever.

"You do want to be here," he asked more than said to her.

She nodded again, gaze dropping to her feet as they stood at the door inside his quarters that first night. It wasn't the trip to the kitchen, or looking out the window – which she had done for a solid ten minutes one time when she'd awoke the first time pressed to his side – or even that she didn't like being in her room alone. She kept the image of the shadowy landscape in her mind, her only brief glimpse into a world beyond walls.

She hadn't decided yet why she liked being there, with him, because it was more than the sex.

And she _did_ like that, too. "I do."

"Good." He had one hand on the door latch, but he didn't open it. He was in no rush, and he knew she was in no hurry to leave. "If he questions you, just tell him I wanted you here and leave it at that. You tell me immediately if he asks you anything."

She had nodded, and had every time he repeated the orders to her when she left his rooms the next few nights.

Once back in her room after the third night, Orihime was more reluctant for Grimmjow to leave than before. The surveillance dome over the door checked her movements, stilling her compulsion to stand closer to him, even if she could make up a reason to.

He made a few comments, and she kept her head lowered, as he'd instructed her to before they left his room. It was necessary, the pretense, and she hated it. As much as she loathed returning to her own room, she dreaded being alone knowing their routines would return to normal when Aizen came out of his reclusion.

When he was gone, she went back to her usual schedule, but this time when she crawled into the bedclothes of her small bed, she pulled the sheets over her head and wept. Other times she'd think back on the warm and comfortable confines of Grimmjow's embrace or headier moments of sex with him, but this time all she could think of was Aizen's return.

* * *

The normal, sterile routine returned the next morning. Grimmjow collected Orihime from her room, a few sparse words whispered to her as they took the corridors to meet with Aizen for tea. She only nodded, knowing the surveillance domes caught any nuance in the halls they took.

Aizen was already seated at the table inside at one of the high-backed chairs. He looked to each of them, nothing in his expression telling them anything. He nodded to Orihime.

"Sit down. Have some tea."

She sat in her usual chair, overly conscious of remaining neutral to Grimmjow as he took the chair across the table from her.

"I had every intention of arranging a luncheon between us before leaving so suddenly," he told her, pouring the steaming tea from the porcelain pot into three cups. He set one before her as her eyes riveted to him in stark fear. He read her easily. "If I had," he continued, eyes remaining on her as she froze, "perhaps we could have discussed your meal preparation. I understand Grimmjow took you to the kitchen."

Orihime's fingers trembled as they rested at the table edge. She didn't chance reaching for the tea cup.

Grimmjow watched her growing panic. "You said she was due a reward," he reminded, ignoring the cup of tea Aizen pushed to him.

"Yes, I said she was." Aizen took a drink of his tea.

Orihime looked to him, swallowing painfully as the air seemed to elude her lungs. She tried to quell the terror paralyzing her hands into non-movement.

"You were able to discuss with the cook a menu more to your liking?" he asked her.

She nodded numbly, feeling the cold run through her head.

He nodded, setting his cup on the table. He looked to Grimmjow. "Has there been any sign yet of Santrous or Lene?"

Over the next few moments talk turned to the recently released Arrancar that had been given free rein to find their powers in the desert of Hueco Mundo. Orihime only half listened. Even less than half, actually. She concentrated on breathing, on keeping her hands from shaking when she attempted to sip her tea, on not looking to Grimmjow when she felt his eyes on her.

She wasn't sure what would show in her face. _Of course the cook had told Aizen-sama or the chef,_ she thought, staring unfocused at the tea cup. It was to be expected. She should have thought of it.

She dared to look to Grimmjow. He was nodding slightly to Aizen. Of course Grimmjow had probably assumed the cook would tell, she told herself. She looked back down to the cup, watching the steam cool into invisibility.

More time had passed than she realized. When she finally looked up again both Grimmjow and Aizen were watching her.

"... and then you return," Aizen was saying, mostly to Grimmjow. "Szayel One has instructions that today is only a consultation, to get back up to speed from your break," he said, now looking at Orihime. He watched her eyes remain on his, seeing the hesitation when she didn't look to Grimmjow. "Nothing taxing, Orihime," he told her. "You've made progress here, something that I will find adequate reward for," he said, eyes shifting to Grimmjow. "Now," he said, looking back to Orihime, "Grimmjow will take you to the laboratory for your meeting with the Szayels."

"Yes, Aizen-sama," she said weakly.

She stood when Grimmjow did, made a slight bow to Aizen, and followed the Sexta out of the room.

She breathed easier at his side as they walked, her heart still racing, but this time she could at least inhale.

"Don't look so anxious," he told her as they made their way to the lab. She looked up at him, and he could almost see her eyes tremble. "So the damn cook told him. There's nothing in it. There is no surveillance in the kitchen and we said nothing amiss there when the cook was present."

She nodded, trying to match his quick strides down the hall.

It was little consolation, and Grimmjow didn't linger at the lab. The Szayels met her and Grimmjow made certain One was still current with Aizen's plans for a consultation only for the day with Orihime, and then he returned to Aizen.

He sat in the same chair as he'd been previously, but his carriage had changed. Grimmjow wasn't sure what about Aizen's demeanor had altered, but it had. The former shinigami was always different after his revitalizations, usually more aggressive, and as a result of his renewed energies, the Wailing was always louder. This time was no different.

The only difference was Orihime was back.

Aizen watched Grimmjow sit down. "I understand you've been amusing yourself," he said, judging the Sexta's reaction.

There was little to judge, but even Grimmjow wasn't quite ready for the veiled accusation. "Amusing?"

"The idea was for Orihime to be rewarded," Aizen clarified. "Not you."

Grimmjow spent all of three seconds debating just how much Aizen could know. "I thought the kitchen was a good idea for her."

"I'm not speaking of the kitchen." Aizen sat back in his chair, holding Grimmjow's steady stare. "Human girls are fragile; not something for an Espada to toy with."

Grimmjow wanted to grab him by the throat and squeeze until that smug expression popped off Aizen's face. "The Szayels are the ones you should -"

"I'm talking to _you_ about it, Jaegerjaquez," he said thickly, his usual composure slipping minutely. "She's not here to entertain you."

Grimmjow's eyes narrowed on him. "She's not damaged," he risked saying. There was little else Aizen could be referring to, so he decided to cut down the matter as quickly as possible. "Hell, there's nothing else to do here. No one to fight with. You've sent every interesting battle prospect out into the desert," he said, shrugging. "What's a bit of amusement?"

"I don't want her damaged."

Grimmjow looked to the chair Orihime had occupied earlier, grinning a little, knowing Aizen would expect it. "Anything else?"

Aizen nodded slowly, but not in response to anything Grimmjow had said. "Speaking of our sister," he added, "I think it's time to see if there's been any reaction to her absence. You're going to the Living World to gauge the response from her friends there."

Grimmjow bristled at the suggestion. "You want me to observe?"

Aizen nodded. "But you're not to engage any of them in a fight unless absolutely necessary, and I mean you do not make yourself known at all, Grimmjow."

"Kind of hard to get that close to some of them that way," Grimmjow said with a chuckle. He wasn't sure what the test was with Aizen now. "What exactly do you want to know?"

Aizen stood up. "If she's missed, and by whom."

Grimmjow looked up at him, and then stood.

"You can leave now."

Grimmjow kept most of the scowl from his face. "She's still at the lab."

"I know that." Aizen didn't smile, but there was something in his features that made Grimmjow's concern edge up a notch. "You're to leave immediately."

* * *

**Authors' Note:** _Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed!_


	12. Temperance II

The morning had stretched long in the laboratory for Orihime. Grimmjow dropped her off with a few words, most of them for the Szayels, pointed commands relayed from Aizen, and then he left. Szayel One wasn't happy about the day's agenda, but he adhered to discussion only for those few hours.

At the end of those few hours, however, he was itching to make progress of less verbal sort.

Orihime sat in the lab with the three researchers, who still looked identical to her, but as Szayel One's attitude changed, she could nearly differentiate him from Two and Four.

He leaned over the lab table as she sat on the stool near it across from him, his leering smile his last line of persuasion. She sat back slightly from him.

"You don't have to tell anyone, sister," he said in a low tone for the third time. "We can just keep this item of research off the records. I have a schedule I want to keep, and we're behind a few days."

"You know the orders," Four said from the other end of the table where he'd been filling out several forms, watching One closely. "Jaegerjaquez-san said Aizen-sama wants no testing or healing of any sort today."

"I know what that throwback Espada said," One bit out, watching Orihime's eyes shift to Four. "But this can stay between our sister and us. We're close to a turn in our research," he said as she looked back to him. "You're a pivotal part of our study and our most unique asset." Some of the grinning sneer dropped from his face. "I can't say that about our other testing ... materials. Sister."

She bit her lower lip, but then stopped as she saw One's eyes follow the movement. "But Aizen-sama said to -"

"Damn it, girl," One said, all smile leaving his face as he straightened on his side of the table. "I think we're close to a breakthrough. The streamers are heavy, sister. I think it's merely a matter of days. Maybe even today, if you consent to a few healings."

Orihime didn't dare lean any farther away on the stool for fear of falling off it. She glanced to Szayel Two as he came through the lab door.

"We're out of injured," he said to One. "It's no use trying to convince her today."

One turned on him. "Then go out and create a few injured for our purpose," he snapped.

"That's Jaegerjaquez-san's duty." Two's face was its typical blank expression.

Orihime looked from him to One.

"I'll do it myself," he muttered. "Bring me a Drone."

"You're out of line," Four said, setting down his ledger at the table and giving the topic his full attention. "Do you want to chance Aizen-sama reprimanding us? I'm don't."

Orihime found herself holding her breath as the Szayels all stared at each other for a long, surreal moment. Her eyes went to the door as it opened.

Grimmjow stepped in, giving the researchers a collective belittling look before his gaze rested on her. "You're done for today. Come with me."

She scooted off the stool and smoothed her dress at the waist and back, aware of the tension still thick in the room.

"We've got the rest of the afternoon with our sister yet, Jaegerjaquez-san," One said, stepping between Orihime and Grimmjow as she rounded the table. "Come back in a few hours."

Grimmjow's scowl didn't change. "I said she's finished. Orihime, come with me."

Szayel One didn't budge, and Orihime moved docilely past him. She looked back to see Four watching Grimmjow, a slight frown to his eyes.

"You know," One said with a chuckle to Grimmjow, "you're a temporary now. Six. We're building a line of Espada that will surpass you. Me, too, but I can keep up. There's only so much we can do with a Sexta old-style."

Grimmjow grinned. "That's Aizen-sama's decision; not yours, One."

Orihime looked between them as One snickered.

"You think so? There's going to come a time, Six," he said with a smile, "when my research will be calling the shots around here. You won't be around to see it, but it's going to happen. No room for you. Nothing less than an elite Espada. Which you are not." He looked to Orihime. "We can make adjustments...for some of the worthy Living."

Grimmjow turned to Orihime. "This fool knows nothing."

She walked ahead of him as he put a hand to her shoulder and opened the door.

"You'll see," One called to them as Orihime and Grimmjow stepped into the hall. "Aizen-sama won't keep useless materials!"

"Don't let his prattle bother you," Grimmjow said as they walked down the empty corridor, his hand dropping from her shoulder. "He can easily be replaced."

She nodded, sighing, wishing they were in a more isolated hall. Even then she knew he wouldn't make any – or very little – physical contact with her, unless he could find a justifiable excuse.

They walked on through the corridors, following the twisting maze of halls that could swallow her if she was left unattended in them. She chanced to look at him after they'd walked for several moments without speaking. He glanced at her, his expression unreadable. He looked to the next corner as they took it.

Orihime's eyes went back to the floor ahead of them, wondering if he was upset with her, sensing something uncannily lacking about him. She took a deep breath, glancing to the smoky domes that watched their every step.

"Did you perform any healings today?" he finally asked.

She shook her head. "No. We only talked about the last ones."

He nodded.

They continued on, the smoky domes with hidden eyes unblinking as they passed through several more empty corridors.

Orihime frowned a little, keeping pace with his steps, wondering at the unusual quiet pervading him. It was more than the lack of conversation. They'd had lengthy walks before through the halls of Las Noches, but this time there seemed to be a different quiet. She didn't feel something, something that was usually reflected back at her when she was with him, and not only when she was in his quarters where his spiritual pressure was heaviest.

He stopped them at a door in the next hall, and she looked to the wall across from it to see the dome at the ceiling watching them. It was chancy, going to his quarters with Aizen returned after his absence, and she wasn't sure she wanted to risk it. _Maybe Aizen-sama is gone again_, she thought hopefully. She caught the smile that began to form at her lips as she remembered the dome on the wall. Maybe that was why he'd been so quiet.

Grimmjow put his hand to the keypad near the door. Out of habit Orihime's eyes went to the floor, looking for the familiar crack in the tile.

It wasn't there.

Frantically her eyes searched for the telltale line in the tile floor. There was none.

Her eyes shot to Grimmjow as the door to his quarters opened.

He was already looking at her. "Go in."

For a moment Orihime froze. She studied his face, his stony expression one she'd seen before, but this time that was all it was. There was nothing in the eyes that she'd seen before; not the loathing she'd seen when he'd fought Ichigo, not the fury she'd seen in him for Luppi or Tousen when she'd restored his arm, nor the distaste he'd had for Loly and Menoly that day when they'd accosted her in her room so long ago.

Nor was there what she'd seen lately. She wouldn't presume to call it affection, but it was definitely something far tenderer than she thought him capable of.

"Go in, Orihime," he repeated when she didn't move.

She swallowed as her throat tightened. She looked to the floor again, desperate to find the elusive cracked tile. It still wasn't there.

She forced herself to take those next steps into the room.

It was dim, the day already darkening in the windows high on the walls. She frowned, unaware that she'd been in the laboratory so long.

Nothing met her as she stood in the room and he shut the door behind them. There was no warm rush that permeated her skin when she was in his quarters, no distinct pressing that she knew to be Grimmjow as surely as she'd known Ichigo Kurosaki's presence.

She glanced around the room. Everything was in place, not a pillow unfamiliar, but it wasn't the same, and she knew it. She looked to him as he stood nearer, her stomach churning.

He looked to the carefully placed hairpins at either side of her auburn hair. "Do you remember what I told you before we left the Living World?"

A dozen thoughts flew through her mind, none of them making sense as she studied him in detail. Everything was the same about him, too, physically, but Orihime had come to know Grimmjow's mannerisms and what it felt like to be with him, and that was now lacking.

She nodded numbly.

He cocked his head to one side, eyes on her lips. "What did I tell you?"

"You, you said I was going back."

He nodded. "Do you remember what I said the first time you were here?"

She recalled everything he'd said that night. "You said ... you said this is not the Las Noches I knew," she said shakily, feeling faint. "You said it's a place of reward and punishment." Her gaze fell to the floor, and then slowly went to the bed at the split-level at the opposite side of the suite.

He nodded, watching her hair fall over her shoulder as she looked back to him, the fear evident in her wide eyes.

"You needn't look so frightened," he said, a bit of grin on his face. "Aizen-sama doesn't know you're here."

The formal address validated her suspicions and raised every alarm in Orihime's head. She looked back to the bed, and then to a window.

"It's dark," he said, predicting her next words. "There's nothing to see."

The dark had never stopped him before from letting her look outside. She wondered if she did if she'd see the same sparse trees and slopes of crystal sand or a different landscape. A wave of nausea passed over her as she looked down. The spiritual presence she associated with Grimmjow wasn't there to brace her and she missed it.

She knew who stood before her.

She'd heard the stories: some from Rukia, some from Renji, a few from Rangiku and, of course, Ichigo. The master of illusion. Able to trick even his closest comrades. Able to lead the whole of Soul Society into delusion.

She'd never known _that_ Aizen. She'd only known the power-hungry shinigami who had been hidden. Aizen by his true identity.

"You don't want to be here, Orihime?"

She kept her head lowered, but her eyes went to his chest as she fought the trembling threatening her senses as she tried to decide what he wanted to hear.

"You told me it doesn't matter what I want."

More of a grin came to his face as she looked up. "You're wishing I was him, aren't you?"

This time she frowned in genuine confusion. Did Aizen want to know _who_ she wished Grimmjow was? Or who she thought stood before her? Could he suspect she didn't believe his illusion?

"Him, Jaegerjaquez-san? Who?"

He shook his head slowly. "There is no temporary shinigami to find you now, Orihime."

The few words Aizen said told her what Grimmjow never would have said. She and Grimmjow had only spoken of Ichigo a few times, but those times had been candid, sometimes painfully so. He knew of her feelings for Ichigo, had mentioned knowing a few low points about the impending engagement; she couldn't imagine Grimmjow bluntly asking her if she preferred Ichigo to _him_.

He scowled, and she felt a surge of something else pass around them. She recognized it, seeing through the façade of reiatsu he presented. She knew shinigami when she felt it.

"Kurosaki-kun is my friend," she said softly, knowing Grimmjow would have a reaction to the name.

But there was little.

He reached into the pocket of his white pants. "You should readjust your priorities, Orihime," he said, his tone void of any emotion. "The hierarchy here begins and ends with Aizen-sama, not any Espada."

She looked to the kikanshinki he held. She hadn't seen one in a while, and not since Rukia had tried – and failed – to erase her memories of her brother's attack had anyone attempted using one on her.

She frowned, looking up to him.

"Much as I'd like to make other memories with you right now, Orihime," he said lightly, a smile coming to one corner of his mouth, "I don't want you to forget those events. For another time."

She took a step back, her heart suddenly racing painfully.

"You're going to remember going back to your room after leaving the laboratory," he said, flipping the device's small activator. "You're going to have black spots in your memory and a headache in the morning. Even I can't replace a memory. Only create the illusion of one."

"I don't under -"

She was still speaking when the kikanshinki flashed before her eyes. Points of black blinked before her. There was another flash, and she wobbled.

A hand came to her elbow as she blinked to clear her vision.

Her memories remained.

She knew the hand on her arm. She looked to Aizen, knowing the image of Grimmjow he presented was just that. "I'm dizzy ..."

"Come along. I'll take you back to your room."

It was Aizen's voice she heard. The cover of reiatsu he'd held up was slipping, but she said nothing of it. She let him escort her out of the room and down the halls.

He spoke as they walked, hushed words of what she would remember in the morning, making her confirm that it was what she thought. She nodded automatically, wanting to cringe from the hand at her elbow under his escort. She hadn't forgotten anything in the last hour, but she nodded and murmured she did every time he asked.

Back in her own room she felt an intense claustrophobic isolation she hadn't before, even under Ulquiorra's watch. The lights had already dimmed to half power and she realized the day had slipped away at an alarming rate. She turned to look at Grimmjow as he stopped behind her, still feeling the strange reiatsu that was neither Grimmjow nor completely shinigami.

He leaned down to her face, fingers at her cheek as she held her breath, silently praying against a number of thoughts. "The next time I ask who you wish I was," he said, lifting her chin until she had to face him, "you will say Aizen-sama."

She frowned, partly because it echoed odd in her mind that the form before her would say such words and partly because she knew he planned to ask her again. "_You_ will? Next time?"

He nodded, smiling at the slight tremble that began at her lips. There was nothing in his expression that read as Grimmjow to Orihime despite his appearance.

"I don't understand why..."

He sighed and again retracted the kikanshinki from his pocket. "This will be the last one, Orihime. Time for you to go to sleep."

There was another flash, a few more words, and then he left.

Orihime stood alone in the room for several long moments. The bizarre events of the afternoon and repeated memory-erasing flashes left her with a feeling of being in limbo, as if in a dream.

If Aizen was masquerading as Grimmjow, and openly in the halls, she wondered, where was Grimmjow?

A sudden rush of fear overwhelmed her. Was he even alive? Perhaps Aizen knew of their days together. A fear unlike any from the past few weeks engulfed her.

"_Just go to bed and sleep,"_ came Shunou's tepid voice in her head.

She nodded slowly, waiting for word from Tsubaki, but there was none. The male sprite had said little since being injured.

"_That's what he expects,"_ Shunou whispered. _"Pretend to believe him."_

Orihime nodded slightly again, which only made her dizzier. She took out her hairpins and slipped them into her pocket, taking a few moments to brush her hair back from her face with her fingers, aware of the smoky dome over the door watching her movements.

Tell Aizen whatever is necessary, Grimmjow had told her. She agreed with him; she had little choice but to tell Las Noches' ruler what he wanted to hear.

But there were certain things that even Orihime Inoue wouldn't say, even to Sousuke Aizen, even for her life.

She'd missed supper and knew it, but hunger escaped her. More troubling to her than Aizen's deception was wondering where Grimmjow was. _Perhaps checking up on Lene and Santrous,_ she thought as she pulled the bedclothes back and crawled into bed.

The faint light in the room dimmed again, this time to the low setting Orihime knew to be night. She closed her eyes and pulled the blanket to her chin, and then over her head.

Aizen's games were more potent than she expected, and far more extreme than she was willing to play.

* * *

**Authors' Note:** _Thanks for reading!_

_Let us know if the rating change is unwise... Thank you for the feedback!_


	13. Shadows Past I

It was still the thick of summer in Karakura Town when Grimmjow got there, the stifling heat only adding to his already foul temper. There was no need to go by Orihime's now abandoned apartment, but he did anyway. To go directly to where he knew he should, Kurosaki's house, would inevitably lead to an altercation Aizen had forbid.

In most moods Grimmjow would have thrown Aizen's commands to hell and done mostly what he felt like, but things were a little different now. Orihime was still in Hueco Mundo, and if Aizen had any indication of recent events, he could certainly do damage to the Sexta, even without a blade, even indirectly.

Grimmjow knew this. He didn't like it, hadn't expected it, that strange feeling running under his skin when he thought of the frail Living girl who had ebbed into his psyche as surely as he'd welcomed himself into her private moments.

He glanced around the rooms of Orihime's apartment. They were still and empty, a deft scent pervading them from her still lingering. Nothing heavy. He wasn't sure what it was; that soft smell on her skin, the warm flush that had nothing to do with the summer weather. At the front door to the hall were a few envelopes on the floor, slipped under by names he could guess.

Emotional investment wasn't a detail Grimmjow was prepared to deal with. He assumed he could ease his way from her whenever he felt like – if he felt like it – and pick up wherever he decided he'd left off.

His eyes narrowed on the empty kitchen lit from the day's evening sun. It reminded him of the kitchen in Las Noches, and of her job at Candlelight Caterers, and of the drunken man he'd left dead in the alley that had dared touch Orihime during her delivery a month ago. There was nothing of interest in the apartment, now that she was gone, and he moved on.

His next stop was the catering shop, now dark and closed for the day. There was nothing to see, just a few stray cats lurking about the back door, sniffing at scraps Mai had scattered for them earlier. Grimmjow's hand tightened on the sword hilt at his side. He had an irritating urgency to return to Hueco Mundo. Orihime left in Aizen's care wasn't a thought he liked. A sense of possession had become stronger lately.

He wasn't sure why that nearly angered him. Possession wasn't something an Espada usually craved – except for rank. But maybe there was something to it. He'd seen it in action with Starrk and Lilynette. It hadn't made sense to him then, watching the lazy Espada and his energetic charge, but now the allure of another entity became more necessary.

Grimmjow didn't like that. But even more he didn't like leaving Orihime vulnerable to Aizen's whim.

By the time he got to the Kurosaki residence and followed the voices from the small, bamboo-fenced backyard, he was fully ready to challenge anyone, just for kicks, just to let off some steam before it percolated into full-blown mutiny. He settled out of sight, spiritual pressure cloaked and suppressed, watching the three.

Ichigo sat with Rukia at the wooden picnic table bench seat, his arm resting behind her at the table near their half empty glasses of lemonade. Across the patio Renji sprawled on a lawn chair, muttering something Grimmjow would have liked to hear, judging from the expression on the red-haired shinigami's gigai face.

Renji's glass was near empty, clamped tight in his hand as he stared at the happy couple across the patio in the evening's low light. "What the hell do you expect?" he growled. He pinpointed half a glare on Rukia. "You, too. You can't expect her not to throw a fit."

Ichigo gave him a sour look. "Going to Tokyo to visit relatives isn't throwing a fit, Renji."

"For Orihime it is," Renji said, shrugging. "She can't break down and cry every time. Where's that got her?"

"Renji," Rukia said sharply. "We're just concerned."

Renji nodded, downing the last of his lemonade. "She's probably there. She'll turn up."

"Her landlord hasn't seen her in weeks," Ichigo said, arm closing around Rukia. He saw Renji's scowl tighten. "She hasn't been at work. Tatsuki isn't allowed to contact anyone except family, so she hasn't heard anything from her."

Rukia's small hand patted him arm.

Grimmjow saw Renji growl and stand up, suddenly alert. Renji looked around suspiciously, and Grimmjow realized he'd let his guard down, let the spiritual power leak for a few seconds. He snapped back his guard, letting nothing slip, his presence once again undetectable.

Renji still looked around the small yard, and then beyond it at nothing, alert.

"Did you feel that, too?" Rukia asked him.

Renji nodded.

Ichigo sat back at the bench, hand still at her shoulder. "I didn't feel anything."

"Yeah, well, you're preoccupied," Renji mumbled, eyes searching the darkening skies.

Rukia rolled her eyes, sighing as she settled back against Ichigo's arm. "I hope she comes back soon. I wanted to talk to her. To make sure it's ... okay."

Renji tossed them a look and set the empty glass beside the chair he'd sat in. "Yeah, she'll come back and say all the nice things she always does. She'll make sure you both feel okay about next week."

Before either Ichigo or Rukia could retort, he waved them off with a hand. "Save it. I'm going to have a look around. I'll try to see Tatsuki, too. See if she knows anything." He let his gigai drop into the chair, now in his black shinigami robes. "See ya."

He was gone in an instant. Grimmjow saw him bound through the air, heading deeper into town. Under a lot of circumstances he would have followed, picked a fight, alleviated some of his building frustrations with Aizen.

He wasn't quite so sure there were as clearly defined sides as there had been before the War with the shinigami. Grimmjow knew who the enemy was, who it was still supposed to be.

But Aizen's enemies weren't necessarily his enemies anymore. He wasn't alone in that thought, but most of the newer minds to that thinking had other reasons to differ with Aizen.

He looked back to Ichigo and Rukia, their voices lower, but a few words escaping to him. Enough to let him know they did have more questions about Orihime's disappearance.

Too similar to her last disappearance, under Ulquiorra's orders.

He didn't try to listen in. His thoughts drifted back to the sands of Hueco Mundo, when Ichigo was intent on beating him. It had never made sense to Grimmjow, even then, before he knew it mattered so much to him, how Ichigo could fight down half of Aizen's forces for his friend, Orihime, and not ask about her welfare.

Even when Grimmjow had pointblank asked Ichigo if he was concerned about what had happened to the girl in Las Noches, the temporary shinigami hadn't given him the answer he expected.

Ichigo hadn't said Orihime was a good friend, or that he felt like an older brother to her, or that she was much _more_ than a friend to him. Ichigo's odd non-reaction of anything made Grimmjow reconsider what he thought he knew of relationships among the Living. He could clearly see the girl's enduring concern for Ichigo, but he didn't see much coming back to her the other way. To him, it seemed that Ichigo had been more concerned about the rescue than the actual princess. Personally, he thought Ichigo should have been outraged; not merely collecting.

It hadn't seemed right. There should have been more.

Grimmjow shook his head and headed off.

* * *

Orihime went about her next morning as she had the others over the last weeks at Las Noches, but this time her movements seemed surreal to her. She felt lethargic, unsure if she was really moving or not as she dressed in the clothes left on the couch for her.

She didn't know when the small Drone had left them, but the more she thought over the events of the preceding evening, she realized they'd been laid out then. Usually Grimmjow let the Drone in in the morning when he came to collect her and waited while she dressed.

She pulled on the white coat and fastened it, eyes closing as she recalled the day before. Yes, she could visualize the room, the couch, her clothing.

That meant the Drone – and Grimmjow – had not been in to her room yet.

She squeezed her eyes tight shut. It also meant Grimmjow wasn't there, hadn't been in yet.

"Where are you?" she whispered softly to no one, not loud enough for surveillance to hear, just above a thought.

She leaned against the short wall at the back of her room and stared at the sink below the mirror. There was no comfort in thinking about the last time she'd seen him, or the image of him as portrayed by Aizen.

She shuddered, and then stood straighter, eyes flinging wide as the room's door opened. She edged to the end of the wall and looked to the front.

In the open doorway stood Szayel – which one, she was unsure.

He stood there for a moment, looking around the room with slight curiosity and expectancy.

She stepped out, blinking a few times.

Szayel Four looked to her. "I'm here to take you to Aizen-sama, sister."

Orihime sighed. She wasn't sure if it was Szayel Two or Four, but she knew it wasn't One.

He waited for her from the doorway.

"I, I ... I haven't seen Jaegerjaquez-san," she said slowly, gauging his response. "Since yesterday."

There was a flicker of something in his eyes, and then he nodded. "Let's go, sister."

Szayel Four walked quietly at her side down the maze of corridors by the most direct path to where Aizen stood at an intersection of halls with Szayel One. Both looked to her and Four, and there was no mistaking the displeased nature in One's glance.

"That will be all for now," Aizen said to the lead researcher. "I'll expect an update on progress soon."

"Yes, Aizen-sama," One said, shifting a look to Four.

"That will be all for you also," Aizen said to Four. "You may both return to the laboratory. Our sister will not be available today. You may resume your work with her input tomorrow."

Both Szayels turned and left down another corridor, One grumbling lowly about something.

Orihime didn't want to look to Aizen, but knew it was expected, and unavoidable. She made herself look up at his face, finding the same smugness that he usually wore, but a little frayed now.

"You look unrested, Orihime," he said, watching her carefully.

She shook her head.

He studied each of her eyes. "Oh?"

"I, I had strange dreams last night," she said carefully, unsure what he wanted her to say. "I ... have a sort of blank spot in some ...spots."

He nodded slowly, turning her to walk down the next hall. "Perhaps it's best to have a break from the lab today."

She nodded, disliking walking beside him.

"You dream of your past life."

Her eyes shot to his, any veil she tried to keep up dropping instantly. He smiled.

"I'm not dead," she said barely audibly.

"No, you're not." They took the next corner of halls, steps echoing along the tall walls. "I meant you dreamt of your friends."

"Oh." She looked back to the corridor before them. "I don't always remember my dreams." She usually did, but it seemed like an easy excuse at the moment.

"There have been rumors from beyond the walls of the palace," he said, his tone becoming slightly familiar to her.

Orihime searched her memory for when she'd heard the same tone before, but her head was beginning to hurt. She'd missed supper and hadn't had breakfast yet. And she hadn't seen Grimmjow.

"I want only the strongest allies for my next army," he continued, his tone seeming almost mesmerizing. The same tone he'd used when he'd spoken to her before the War when he'd shown her the Hyogoku. "Above what any of the previous Espada were. I think there are candidates out there. Together we can improve them, Orihime."

A chill crept up her spine at the words. She resisted the urge to cross her arms at her chest, making herself nod.

"I hear there is a Vasto Lorde in the vicinity."

She looked to him, seeing at first the gleam of greedy promise in his eyes, and then the slight darkening at the corners of the white. She quickly looked down to the floor ahead of them. "They're powerful."

"Indeed."

He cleared his throat and she waited for him to speak again, but he didn't until they turned another corner.

"An army of them could defeat any army Soul Society could possibly assemble," he told her.

She didn't look to him, half fearing she'd see that black darken his eyes again, and she wasn't sure what that meant. Without Grimmjow there, she didn't want to know.

"You've not eaten yet?"

She shook her head, finally looking to him when his steps slowed them. Thoughts of what Szayel One had said – had said to Aizen when he'd posed at Grimmjow the day before in the lab – came to her mind. Szayel One claimed there was no place in Las Noches' future for any of the old Espada. Aizen was bent on forming another, more elite army.

_Perhaps_, she thought, _an army that knew nothing of Aizen-sama's defeat to Soul Society. Perhaps an army that held more allegiance to him, where none of them questioned an order_.

There would be no place for Grimmjow in that army.

Her gaze dropped to the floor and she swallowed the thick lump in her throat, feelings that she generally reserved for someone else seeping into her soul.

"I'd intended to spend the day with you," Aizen said, the words making her head snap up, eyes lock on his. He read what he cared to in them, which was a wrong appraisal. "We'll find time for a leisure luncheon another day, Orihime. You look tired. You may rest today."

"Thank you, Aizen-sama," she forced out, arms crossing unconsciously before her, held tight to her chest.

"Would you like to have some time in the kitchen? The cook and chef both can learn a few things from you," he said, smiling more.

Her first response was to say no, but Orihime knew he expected her to say yes, to leap at the offer, to render gratitude.

She was beginning to hate that word.

She nodded, blinking back the few tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes.

"You look worried, Orihime," he said, stepping closer, but then stopping as his own eyes darkened minutely. He could see that she noticed. His smile took a twist at one side of his lips. "Ah, I know what it is. Grimmjow's absence worries you. Doesn't it?"

The lurch of fear in her chest sprang painfully forward, making her arms tighten closer to her. She wanted to say no, but when her mouth opened, a faint word uttered out.

"Yes."

A cruel bend came to his smile. "Don't worry, Orihime. I've sent Grimmjow to the Living World, but given him orders not to pick any battles with your friends."

Her breath gave way in a sudden sigh, nearly a gasp.

Aizen chuckled, misreading her relief. "He won't hurt any of your friends. Your worries are wasted. Now," he said, turning them down the hall and continuing, "the cook and chef are at your command for the next few hours. Make yourself something to eat and amuse yourself. Keep up your strength. You have a full workload ahead of you."

Aizen spoke on, but Orihime's mind was stayed on those few words. Grimmjow was absent. That was all.

As they walked she realized that she was more worried than she admitted, and also realized that what Aizen had said may also not be true. If he'd gone as far as to give himself the illusion of Grimmjow to her, he'd not stop at lying about the Sexta's whereabouts.

The knot came back to her stomach.

It was still there and remained there, tightening into spasms as they went to the kitchen and Aizen left her with the chef and cook while he went to look over the next crop of recruits.

_And no doubt try to learn more of the rumors of a Vasto Lorde_, she thought.

She barely heard the cook and chef, their near-interest in what she could teach them, the fresh fruits and vegetables arrayed and waiting for her on the counter, the enticing smells of foods at her beck and call. She didn't think of any of it, of them, not even of Aizen.

After hours of attempting to concentrate on the abundance of food before her and the attention of the cook and chef, the door to the kitchen opened and to Orihime's delight, Grimmjow stepped in.

She was still at the counter, watching the cook prepare Aizen's supper, when the door opened. She caught most of the smile forming at her lips, steeling herself against going to him as he gave the cook and chef a dismissive glance and crossed the room to her.

She felt the weight of the stares on them, and made a slight bow to the Espada. "Jaegerjaquez-san," she said, trying not to smile more.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" Before she could answer, Grimmjow turned to the other two. "You can leave."

The chef and cook exchanged looks. "We've been told to attend the sister here," the chef said, the terminology unfamiliar to him.

Grimmjow grunted. "You can now leave."

Both the chef and cook shook their heads.

"Aizen-sama commanded we stay, Jaegerjaquez-san," the chef said levelly.

Grimmjow glared him, and then took Orihime's arm. "Have you had your supper?"

She nodded eagerly as he escorted her to the door. "Yes." Even the small contact of his hand at her elbow was enough for her to know it was him, his touch familiar on her. "You're back."

He pushed the door open and they went out into the hall. "I didn't know I was leaving yesterday."

A dozen questions and thoughts flooded her head, and she looked with disappointment to his hand when it dropped from her arm as they moved down the hall. She glanced to the smoky dome at an intersection as they passed it at the first corner.

"Who took you to the kitchen?"

"Aizen-sama."

She heard the low growl in his throat and didn't dare smile at the sound.

"Who came to your room this morning?"

"Szayel-san Four," she said, breathing easier as they moved down the corridor, conscious of the domes they passed watching unblinkingly.

"Are you sure?"

She looked up to see genuine interest in his face. She nodded. "Szayel-san One was with Aizen-sama when we met him."

He nodded, taking the next corner quicker. "Who took you from the lab yesterday?"

At first Orihime couldn't form the name to answer, and she bit her lower lip as they paused at the next corridor.

"Answer me," he said more pointedly.

He stopped them at a door and ushered her in.

Orihime looked around the small tiled room preceding the shower facility. "Aizen-sama did," she admitted as the door closed behind them. "But, but he looked ... he looked like you, Grimmjow."

For a few seconds Grimmjow just stared at her, an incredulousness freezing him until lividness shot a deeper blue through his eyes.

"He _what_?" he bellowed, hand on her forearm now, this time tightening painfully.

She took a step back, instinctively clenching her hands against his change of manner. "I know it was an illusion. I knew it wasn't you."

His glare burnt into her. "How do you know, Orihime?"

She smiled, relaxing her hands, her arm in his hold. "He was nothing like you. Everything was wrong, Grimmjow," she added in a softer tone.

His hand lost some of its fierce grip. "You _know_ that?"

She nodded, turning her face so the dome could only witness her nod as she felt a few tears try to return. This time is was more than relief, she realized. She wiped one away as it escaped to her cheek. "He said you went to the Living World, to see my friends."

Grimmjow nodded, watching her fingers brush her cheek. "I didn't fight any of them," he said, voice hardening as he guessed who the first tear was for. He didn't think he could tolerate watching her spill more for his former enemy. "Take your shower."

She looked to him in slight confusion as he released her arm. She nodded, and slipped to the back of the rooms.

A moment later he heard the shower begin, heard her move as she undressed, the change in the sound of water as she entered the shower stall amid the growing warmth of the rooms. He gave the security dome a threatening look.

"You're sure it wasn't me?"

"Yes."

Some of the glower left his face, eyes still on the dome. "You sound certain, Orihime."

"I am."

He waited at the wall shared to the shower, the sound of water behind him reminding him of the rain the first night he'd made himself known to her in her bedroom. He looked to the tile floor where the opening to the shower area gave limited view to the surveillance dome. He spent a moment judging that view, watching drops of water splash off to the floor.

He knew what they splashed off of, what curves were possible. He heard a soft sniffle and it made his hands brace into fists. "Don't cry over someone belonging to someone else, Orihime," he said tautly. "The engagement is still on."

There was a sigh, and then she said, "I wasn't crying ... over that."

He heard another sigh, and then a few more movements beneath the water. He was going to say something else, something that would probably make her cry more, and for the wrong reasons, but instead she spoke.

"I missed you."

At first Grimmjow thought he'd heard her wrong, a distortion of the words under the water, or that he'd just imagined them entirely.

Her voice lowered. "I'm glad you're back."

He spared the smoky dome a quick look, and then rounded the wall.

She stood in the shower, steam swirling around her from the more than warm water, hair drenched to her shoulders, pulling all curl out to where it lay streaming with water over her breasts. Any shock at seeing him there dissolved into a slow smile on her face.

His eyes flicked over her for a few seconds, thoughts switching from estimating the stunted view the dome had of him to what her skin would taste like beneath the water.

"Do you mean that?"

She nodded, sending fervent streams of water shedding in new directions over her.

It went against every caution in him, but Grimmjow took that last half step to the edge of the shower stall, reaching in to pull her closer. She came readily, smiling against his hand that cupped her cheek before sliding beneath the back of her wet hair as her face tilted to his.

He kissed her slowly, wanting to savor the water running warm over her lips, mouth pressing to hers in a hunger unlike any he'd had through any evolution. Her wet hands were warm, slipping around his waist, just under his jacket to his back, fingers curling to beckon him closer.

He broke the kiss too soon in both their opinions, holding her near as her blushing smile contrasted with the pull of her arms around him. He grinned, focusing on her lips as he let his hands settle around her waist, the small of her bare back seeming especially vulnerable.

"Finish your shower," he said lowly, watching as her breasts nearly touched his chest, wishing they would. His eyes dropped to her neck, following a stream of water as it traced the curve of her skin to her throat, tempted to give it more attention, but also knowing he wouldn't stop there.

"Hurry up. I've got to take you back to your room."

Her eyes closed slowly, a shallow sigh breathing on him as she nodded. She took a deep breath as he released her.

He disappeared around the corner of the shower wall and she leaned back to the tile behind her.

Grimmjow looked at the smoky dome over the door to the hall, and then turned his face from it, replaying her words in his mind as he grinned.

Stupid Kurosaki.

* * *

**Authors' Notes:** _Thank you for reading and all the reviews! Belated Happy New Year!_


	14. Shadows Past II

That had been all Grimmjow had got of Orihime. As much as he wanted to ask her an hour's worth of questions, he knew he'd come perilously close to making a mistake he couldn't undo in the shower. He walked her back to her room that evening through the more common corridors of Las Noches – in hopes of proving he had nothing to hide – saw to her supper being delivered, and then set out in search of Aizen.

He didn't really want to find him; he'd gotten the answer out of Orihime that he wanted to hear. Yes, she'd spent time with Aizen Sousuke while he was absent, but it wasn't the sort of time Grimmjow dreaded most. The nuisances of Living human and shinigami relationships wasn't something he'd ever been too keen on understanding, but this was one he thought he saw coming.

If it had been any Espada from the War days threatening an interest he had, Grimmjow would have simply challenged it or him head on, rank be damned. But this was Aizen, and weak as he could be when his compartmentalized selves began warring within him, he was still too powerful for Grimmjow to take on.

He knew this, but he also had hope, knowing the shinigami and Hyogoku affects volleyed for control in Aizen.

Hope.

Grimmjow turned down the next hall, scowl increasing as he thought of the concept. Hope was what weaker beings had when they had nothing else to hinge their emotions on. Much as he hated it, hope was at least a starting place for other possibilities. Hope was what got his coveted rank of Sixth back.

He grinned despite his mood. Orihime had enabled him to do that, too.

Aizen wasn't in all of his usual spots, not even in the palace's underground arena watching the private spars he liked to occasionally hold among the better recruits. The arena was usually only used for exhibition practice and elimination sparring. The everyday practice that Grimmjow oversaw was held in the commons pavilion. It was close by, surfacing to the courtyard outside the still rubble-strewn exterior of Las Noches, looking more like the battle-torn fortress the place really was than an empire being rebuilt.

Aizen wanted it that way, the appearance of a building still wrecked, the kind of place a Hollow would feel at home as it investigated the Wailing that drew them in. It was a trap, as most of Aizen's surroundings were; once inside the courtyard there was no way out, the reiatsu-cutting Wailing sucking the life-force out of anything trying to get past it. Even when recruits like Lene and Santrous left, it was dismantled temporarily. It had been Szayel Four's invention, and one that Grimmjow knew Four didn't like. He lacked the deviant vein One had. Two lacked most of the qualities that had made Szayel Aporro himself, but Two never complained. He just followed One's orders.

Grimmjow leaned on the balcony rail running around the arena, surveying the chambered floor space below. He'd give up his rank as Sexta to get Aizen on the sparring floor and best him. What good was rank now anyway? What sense did it make to be Sixth when he was the last one left? Sixth among what? None of the Szayels recalled their previous rank of Eighth, and none of them cared about it anyway.

Grimmjow left the arena.

Actually, Szayel Four remembered. He didn't have all the memories of the original Szayel – none of them did – but he recalled that, and he still didn't care about rank.

* * *

Grimmjow gave up on finding Aizen that night and resorted to catching up with him the next morning when he brought Orihime from her room. He'd let her spend as leisure of a breakfast he dared, content to watch her eat with a better appetite since his return, all the while suppressing a grin at the sneaking glances she cast his way, a smile in her eyes.

"Everything you do is in your face," he said once before catching himself, mindful too late of the ears listening into the room. She looked to him quickly, and he scrambled for a way to backtrack over his words. Instead he leaned over his seat in the chair near the couch where she sat, elbows resting on his knees as he scowled. "Your friends know you're gone; you're still here."

It wasn't enough to wipe the smile from her eyes, something that surprised him, but she did sigh, her small shoulders letting her hair fall across her white top as she feigned an emotion she didn't quite feel.

"I suppose it would make you happy to know they miss you," he added, trying to voice a reason for her less than terrified attitude to him. "Don't act like you want me here," he growled in a low voice that barely reached her. "You're supposed to wish I was still gone."

She hid most of her smile behind a rice roll, nodding.

It was pointless to get more of a negative reaction out of her, and since there was little chance of getting her alone where he could enjoy her smile in private, he decided to move their day along.

"We're to meet with the Szayels before Aizen," he said. Now her expression did drop, her sigh genuine. He nodded. "He's been briefed about my visit to your little friends; he'll be glad to know no one suspects enough to find you."

Orihime lowered the last bite of roll to her plate, some of the pleasant taste suddenly eluding her. "That's what Aizen-sama wants."

He nodded. "That's what he wants this time."

It was all that was said before they left into the hall. She walked docilely at his side, smiling faintly whenever his arm rubbed against hers, wishing his hand would close over hers, even briefly as they turned a corner to where the laboratory was located. He didn't, and she knew it was too chancy.

They'd already taken enough chances.

"You said he just talked to you," he finally said as they neared the lab where the Szayels waited. She looked up at him, his face set into a scowl. "Did he touch you, Orihime? At all?"

Now the sick feeling manifested in her frown was real. "My elbow," she admitted, cringing as she thought back on the time alone in her room with Aizen. "And, and my cheek."

Instinctively he stopped her, making her face him, eyes taking on a deeper gleam. "Where?" His hand loosened on her shoulder as she glanced to the smoky dome behind him. "Tell me."

Her gaze fell to his chest, the long scar from his fight with Ichigo bringing mixed feelings to her.

He watched her hand go slowly to her cheek, fingertips pausing on the smooth skin he had other plans for. He nodded, steeling against the courses of action swarming his thoughts. "Anything else?"

She shook her head, eyes rising to his. "That's all, Jaegerjaquez-san."

The formal address stopped his fleeting response. "You'd tell me if there was more?"

She nodded, a different softness coming to her face.

He nodded back. "Come on."

He didn't have to stay with her at the lab, but Grimmjow wasn't ready to part Orihime's company. Szayel One wasn't happy about the Espada's looming presence, but kept most of his annoyance to himself.

"If I wasn't in such a hurry today," he said as they entered the Recovery room where four of the cots were filled with wounded recruits, "I'd wait you out; I know you've got to report to Aizen-sama soon, and then our sister will be all mine. You can stay and witness history." An odd twinkle came to his bright eyes. "We've been close, but today I think we're ready."

Szayels Two and Four both looked to the streamers hanging around the Recovery room walls. Most scarcely stirred, some even looking as if they were heavy, stretching under an unseen weight. Orihime looked to them, feeling a slight tingle in her hairpins as her power sprites listened in. None of them spoke to her, not even a whisper, but she could feel their attention pique, feel Tsubaki's ire flame.

She let her focus go to Grimmjow where he stood to the side at a nearby wall, watching Four narrowly. "You're getting another batch of raw material soon," he said. "Had a small herd of prospects come into the courtyard last night. Aizen-sama is handpicking them now."

One was a little disappointed he hadn't got more of a rise out of the Espada, but he turned to Orihime, smiling. "Let's start, sister. My pet project is waiting."

Four exchanged a look with Two, and then glanced to Grimmjow. "Lots of breakthroughs in the works now," he offered, then looked back to One as the lead researcher paused Orihime beside a cot covered with a sheet. "Our first stage will soon be complete and we'll begin work on the top experiments."

One's smile turned indulgent on Orihime. "That's when we'll see how well we really work together, sister."

His chuckle made her nearly shudder, enforcing the sinking notion that merely healing Aizen's wounded army-to-be was not all they wanted from her.

One nodded, pulling back the sheet to expose a flesh wound of the young recruit. His breathing was ragged, one arm crooked over his stomach where a deep gash ran diagonally from his shoulder. Orihime tried not to react to it. She knew it wasn't Grimmjow's work; she felt nothing from the recruit's wound, no reiatsu ebbing from it marking the Sexta's battle.

"Aizen-sama has had the new recruits sparring each other the last few days," Grimmjow offered, sensing Orihime's confusion.

She glanced to him, remaining neutral as she turned back to the cot.

"Go ahead, sister," One said, smiling.

She wasn't sure why he was so smug, so eager for an audience of both Szayels and Grimmjow. She put her hands over the young recruit's torso, not looking to his face as he turned to her. She focused on her work, lips barely moving as she repeated her kotodama. The figure on the cot stilled, stunned at the strange healing inside him as the girl's arms stretched over him.

His wounds healed, disappearing under reversal.

There was a cough, and then a half-shout of surprise from another cot down the line of cots. The Szayels looked to it. Another older, injured recruit grabbed at his sheet and pulled it away, a look of amazement on his face as he watched the long laceration lacing his chest heal.

Orihime's hands curled away from the wounded young recruit beneath them, the words frozen on her lips. She looked from the older recruit down the line to the streamers on the walls. Most of them were curled at the bottom, some swaying slightly, as if in a breeze that couldn't be felt.

Szayel One grinned, eyes taking on a rabid spark. "Continue, sister," he urged. "Don't stop."

Orihime looked to Grimmjow, but his attention was on the older recruit. An angry scowl claimed his face, fierce gaze on the injured Arrancar.

"Please," the young recruit said when Orihime remained immobile.

She looked down to him, his wound still half open.

"Continue," One said, smile livid.

Orihime's fingers extended, shaking slightly as she resumed her work. Below her the recruit's wounds closed up, the skin becoming unblemished.

Grimmjow now stood beside the older recruit's cot, watching in horror and some fascination as the injuries erased before his eyes. On the wall the streamers were still moving, shifting against each other as their potential eked out. He looked to Orihime, seeing the fear behind her eyes as she continued healing, her hands seeming heavier as she worked.

He shot a look to Szayel One and Two, both watching the young recruit. Szayel Four looked to Grimmjow, and then nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Ha!" Szayel One's head flung back and he laughed a chilling laugh that echoed through the room, breaking Orihime's concentration.

She retracted her hands, her working nearly finished. She backed a step away from the researcher as he turned a leering smile on her.

"I've done it!" He leaned closer to her, unmindful of Grimmjow stepping closer to them. "Ha! You know that this means, sister?" He glanced to Grimmjow and straightened from Orihime's cowering face. "You saw it, Sexta! That," he said, pointing to the older recruit, "proves it can be done. That's what I designed this room to do!"

Grimmjow looked from One to Orihime. "You can't duplicate her healing powers," he said more than asked, thinking past the repercussions of such a possibility. "You can't –"

"No, you _Espada_," One crowed, smile undimmed. "This," he spread his arms wide, "this room is just the first step. I've been collecting her signature, her healing powers, the very essence of what makes it work. I haven't figured out the trigger yet, but anything in here wounded is healed," he said jubilantly, "when she heals _even one_ injury!"

"Anything?" Grimmjow asked, glancing back to the other two cots that showed no signs of movement.

Szayel One waved them away with an effeminate hand. "The possibility is in its infancy, yes, but it is possible. Aizen-sama will be immensely pleased. First this, and then we move on to healing without her even initiating a healing. And then, we build an Arrancar that can heal itself of any injury. Unstoppable."

One smiled to himself, nodding at the young recruit.

Grimmjow looked to Orihime's suddenly ashen face.

"This is just one of other such rooms," One said, nodding to no one now. "I can make my memories come true, realize that power out of simple fragments. It can be done. I've going to do it with all powers, not just healing." He smiled indulgently at her. "We're a team, sister. That shinigami scientist never did _this_!"

She shook her head slightly, to which One chuckled. Grimmjow wanted to break the smile off the researcher's face, but resisted.

"She's done for the day," he said.

"Not yet," One decided. "A bit more first."

She was ordered to finish healing the young recruit, but her concentration was on the older one on the other cot. He was now sitting up, watching his flesh stitch itself, fingering the skin as it repaired.

Szayel One was so enraptured with his accomplishment that he didn't even mind that Grimmjow demanded to leave with Orihime after the healing was finished.

"Go," he said, nodding almost eagerly. "She's done here. Very good, sister."

Orihime was nearly shaking by the time she got to the hall with Grimmjow. He took her elbow, pushing her into a walk when her steps hesitated in the hall.

"Don't say anything," he grumbled as they made their way below the smoky domes to the next corridor. "Say nothing to Aizen about it. Let that cheap clone tell him."

She nodded, sagging a little under his hand. His firm grip was shoring, bracing her when she felt like collapsing, not from physical or even mental exertion, but something else.

Realization. Maybe that was it.

"Don't heal any of Aizen's injuries if he asks you to, Orihime," he said, his voice barely audible. Her arm tensed in his hand, and she glanced up to him to make certain he'd said anything at all.

"You heard me," he said to her unvoiced query. They turned down another hall and he spoke a little louder. "I know what you can do; I saw what you did to Loly and Menoly. Don't heal Aizen."

She nodded, a surreal feeling pushing against her senses as they passed down another hall. "But he's immortal, and he has the Szayels to heal his injuries."

"He's not immortal." He didn't look at her this time when she turned an expression of sheer astonishment on him. "He may have been at one time, for a short time, after the War, but it was a short-lived luxury the Hyogoku left him. Residual perks, I guess." He chuckled, watching her blink a few times. "He'd like you to think he is now; I know he's not."

"But...but you're sure?" she asked, not believing her ears.

He nodded, feeling her arm relax more, her posture now stronger, but she didn't move away. "Szayel Four is in charge of formulating his kanzen saimen. He says it's been changed, unlike any pure strain of shinigami reiryoku," he said with a twinge of dislike, "but it has no immortal properties."

Orihime stopped walking. She didn't mean to, but his words halted all movement. "Szayel-san Four?"

He nodded, grinning again at her surprise.

She found her voice, and then took up their walk as he tugged on her arm. "He _told_ you that?"

He nodded, hurrying her along. They walked for a few moments, her mind trying to sift through the new details of the day. A clearer picture of Aizen began to shift into focus.

"Don't speak to him about it, or knowing that you know," he warned, his tone stiffening. She looked up to see his features had sharpened into a somber profile, and then she felt it, too.

She nodded as they turned into another corridor to find Aizen standing at the intersection there. He looked to each of them, gaze pausing on Grimmjow's hand on her arm. He looked to the Espada.

"Your report was encouraging, Grimmjow," he said, a flicker of smile on his face as he looked to Orihime. "You've had a full morning already." He nodded at their collective surprise. "Szayel One is a patient scientist, but not a very modest one. You've made great progress, my sister. I'm pleased." He looked to Grimmjow, a less amiable expression slipping over his face. "We'll discuss your trip to the Living World at length later. Now I want you to test down to the top ten of the new recruits. I understand there are more coming soon. With Szayel's new development I want no lack of prospects."

"I'll take her back to her room," Grimmjow said, feeling Orihime's arm tense in her sleeve.

"No need; I'll take her now," Aizen said, a steady look in his face that dared the Espada to find another excuse.

Grimmjow let Orihime's arm slip from his hand. "I'll see to the recruits."

Orihime didn't turn as Grimmjow left down the opposite hall. She fingered her sleeve where his hand had been, smoothing the material for a long moment before looking to Aizen.

He hadn't moved, studying her closely, seeing something she was sure she wasn't allowing to show.

Then he nodded. "Come with me, Orihime. There's something I want you to see. I think you'll find it interesting."

She swallowed down the reluctance she had at accompanying him anywhere, but obeyed.

"I understand your confusion about returning to us," Aizen said as he took them down the hall, his gait more leisure than Grimmjow's had been. "Sometimes the best choices for our futures are ones not made by us, but by others."

She frowned slightly, not looking to him.

He chuckled, a sound that made her look to him now. "Sometimes a frown can be just as endearing as a smile, Orihime. Did you know that?"

She didn't know what to do with her face after that. She shook her head, looking to the hall before them.

"The last time you were here," he said, passing through another set of halls at a corner, "I put Ulquiorra Schiffer in charge of you."

Orihime looked to him quickly, a sense of treading on unstable footing making her hesitate to speak. He allowed a small smile to her.

"I thought that best because Ulquiorra was a very strong and competent Espada. Trustworthy, also. Not just to me, but with a delicate creature such as yourself," he said. "Grimmjow would certainly not be my first choice in the matter."

A nervous, rapid heartbeat began in her chest, more of a flutter than an actual beat, she decided.

"Ulquiorra was also intelligent." They paused at a double door of solid metal at the next hall. Aizen waved his hand over the keypad and it opened. Down it stretched another long, semi-lit hall of tall walls. He led her down it. "All the Espada were intelligent. Grimmjow is no exception."

"Yes, Aizen-sama," she said, agreeing and feeling the need to say something.

"But they lack," he said, his words bouncing off the walls in a bass tone. "What is taken out of them to make them strong also leaves them bare of emotions."

She nodded, looking to him as he spoke, his manner more of instruction than opinion. She took a deep breath, resolved to clear her thinking.

"Not all emotions," he countered as they took an eventual turn in the hall that put them before another set of double doors. He opened these and they passed through. "They keep those emotions necessary to do their assignments, enough to propel them to a desire to keep their ranks."

Orihime's throat felt dry, the still air that was now devoid of even the sound of the Wailing seeming to leach any moisture out of the hall.

"I suppose you thought you had some effect on Ulquiorra," he said.

She shook her head immediately.

Aizen smiled, not quite kindly, but less than his usual untouchable expression. "An Espada of Ulquiorra's rank has a natural curiosity. The frailties of a Living girl would make him curious. Those frailties are partly why I assigned him to you." He watched her eyes widen as they continued on, saw her attempt at bravery. "Emotions are not learned when there is no heart to support them, Orihime. Underneath it all, Espada are still that, no matter what their form or released state. Their reactions adapt, but they do not develop emotions," he said, leaning slightly toward her, "not the type of emotions important to fragile Living girls."

She nearly stopped walking, focusing on his face as he straightened. He was wrong about Ulquiorra, she knew it. When he'd reached for her hand before blowing away into dust, she knew he understood and welcomed her lack of fear of him. It had been enough for her, to know that. Maybe it was curiosity that got him there, but Ulquiorra did get to that understanding. She knew it.

But she didn't say that to Aizen.

"I suppose not, Aizen-sama," she said feebly as they paused before another double door.

He nodded, and then opened the door. "Espada are created out of the raw power that I train them to harness." He looked inside the smaller room. "But underneath they're still a base Arrancar."

Orihime stepped into the room when he nodded for her to. Inside it was sterile, the walls and color a chalky white, a faint smell of an animal making her wonder if her senses had departed her. A short wall divided the entry from the back portion, and it was around this that he led her.

She stepped past it, and then stopped short.

The room was sectioned off again by bars running vertically, like a jail cell, enclosing a third of the room in a cage. From behind the bars a large panther stared back at her, its back showing a Hollow hole in the torso. It was lying on a small elevated bunk, watching them steadily as Aizen approached.

Orihime didn't move, shocked by the animal, and what she knew it was. Her eyes stayed locked on it, following its movements as it slowly stepped off the perch, top lip flaring as it looked to Aizen, eyes narrowing.

"Not many in this form out in the desert," Aizen said, watching the animal study him before lowering its powerful neck to look at Orihime. "As much as this could be trained and its abilities directed, it is still a Hollow in the mind. You can never trust it, no matter how much it emulates a domestic cat."

Orihime felt him step closer to her, but her eyes stayed on the cat, hearing a low growling sound come from it, eyes glinting at the man beside her.

"You could teach it to obey certain commands, perhaps even pet it," Aizen said, moving a strand of her hair laying at her shoulder, a movement that barely registered with her as she watched the sleek gray-white animal's lithe form. It paced behind the bars, level stare watching them. It came to some conclusion and warily climbed back onto the bunk and settled, still studying them.

"It may even come when you called it," Aizen said, "if you gave it a name."

The cat's growl became louder, front paws hanging over the bunk pressing until the talons were visible. Orihime swallowed nervously as the animals shoulders bunched, tightened.

She looked to her shoulder as Aizen's hand left her hair.

"But you could never fully trust it," he said close to her ear. "And it could never return your affection, Orihime. Wild animals in the Living World and Hollows are like that."

She wanted to smile, to refute his reasoning. He was wrong. Aizen was wrong and she knew it. Her brother had proven that when he came back to her and yielded to her love for him.

She nodded, not smiling, but her gaze softened on the large cat in the cell.

"Good."

Aizen stepped away, watching her.

She turned, eyes moving slowly from the cat to him. "What will you do with it?"

He gestured to the door out. "It came here when I first began accepting recruits. I had hopes for it then, that it would evolve into something useful, but since you've joined my ranks, Orihime, I've decided on another route."

He hadn't answered her question, but she nodded. She gave the cat a final glimpse as they left.

There was something familiar about the eyes of the dangerous animal, but something welcome, too. Perhaps all Adjuchas held that steady, calculating look in their eyes.

She followed Aizen through the corridors again, but this time with less intimidation.

He was wrong about Hollows, some Hollows, and she knew it.

* * *

**Authors' Note:** _Thank you to everyone reading, and for the reviews!_


	15. Mirror Effect I

The following chapter is rated M for sexual content.

* * *

Orihime didn't get to spend the time with Grimmjow that she wanted. He'd met her in the hall with Aizen and escorted her back to her room, where she ate alone.

She'd seen it in Aizen, the slow growing darkness in his eyes, the slight anxious manner that hinted at his movements. He walked quicker in the halls, his voice crisper than usual, when she knew he enjoyed hearing himself speak.

And he stood farther away from her.

She liked that.

She went about her usual morning, dressing in the clothes the Drone left her, feeling just a bit guilty when she pulled her panties on, as she almost always thought back to the first nights Grimmjow had made himself known in her small apartment. She dressed quickly.

At least she had a now-familiar and welcome face in the cold, echoing halls of Las Noches, albeit an unlikely ally.

She smoothed her hair in the mirror at the small room dividing the toilet from her main room. Even thinking about wanting to spend time in Grimmjow's presence made her blush a faint pink. She saw it flush into her cheeks, making her gaze drop to the sink basin. Her feelings and reactions to being anywhere near the Sixth Espada – from when she'd first met him – had come not only come full circle but spiraled a few times.

It may have been wrong, and Orihime was certain that in any other trek of her life it was, but she liked it.

She sighed as she heard the door open at the front of the room.

Grimmjow stepped in, followed by the small Drone that Orihime thought was the one that usually accompanied her or them.

"Come out and eat, Orihime," he called, spotting her.

She followed his voice, looking to the door as the Drone left. "It's louder," she said without thinking.

Grimmjow's glare shot to her, making her pause as she neared the couch and tray holding her breakfast. "What noise?" he asked pointedly, his back to the door and surveillance dome.

Orihime realized her mistake immediately as his eyes narrowed on her. She shook her head, slowly approaching the couch. "I thought I heard something from the hall," she said timidly, hoping to ease out of any problems her misspeak had made. "I thought –"

"Got a new batch of recruit hopefuls in the commons now," he said, cutting in before she could say what he thought she would. "Noisy lot. Some have been trying to test their limits, see what else the compound has to offer," he said, dropping down into the chair as he watched her sit at the couch and set the tray on her lap. "They can't get far, and not in here, if that's what's on your mind, Orihime."

It wasn't, but she nodded, knowing he was covering for any error she'd made in referring to the Wailing she wasn't supposed to be able to hear. "The ones that left," she said, mostly for something to move the subject away from the noise she wasn't _aware_ of, "Lene and the other recruit, have they returned yet?"

"No."

She nodded, not looking to the smoky dome above the door staring unblinkingly at them. She breathed easier that Grimmjow had shifted the conversation away.

He watched her stir the contents of the smaller dish into the grains in the larger dish on the tray. "Where did he take you yesterday?"

Her eyes flicked to him, reading the spark of genuine interest in his stare that wasn't as evident in his tone. She stirred the mush of grains with her spoon. "He showed me a wild cat. A panther."

"An Adjuchas?"

She nodded, trying to determine the impact on him. There seemed little.

He shrugged, one hand moving the hilt of his sword to a different angle at his side. "I knew he had one a while back, but never knew what he did with it." He watched her return to stirring the bowl. "He's waiting, Orihime," he said in a controlled voice that made her look up. "He wants to test out the recruits before other matters make it impossible."

The spoonful of raspberry flavored porridge stopped halfway to her mouth as she looked to him. She nodded, trying not to let the smile wanting to form take control. There was a slight grin on Grimmjow's face, one that the surveillance dome couldn't see.

She took the bite, mind already running ahead of her to the day.

"But first he has plans for your time," he added, his tone lower this time.

The bite stopped mid-swallow, but Orihime pushed it down through sheer willpower. She nodded, a slight frown on the bowl in front of her.

Grimmjow added a few things, inconsequential items that the domes watching would determine as nothing as Orihime finished her breakfast. She drank half her tea, not wanting to hurry to any meeting with Aizen, but not wanting to induce his suspicion or ill-humor.

* * *

Shortly later they were in the twisting halls of the complex, following nothing, as far as Orihime was concerned. The Wailing was louder, but this time she didn't comment on it.

"We're not going to the laboratory?" she finally asked as the halls seemed to be leading them lower into the foul belly of the fortress.

He nodded, pushing through a double door of blackened stainless steel. "Aizen is pleased with the Szayels' progress – your progress – so Szayel One is spending his time on his own damn experiments. They've all got them," he said. "Two and Four. Keeps them from killing each other and every Drone in the damn place."

She wanted to cringe, but at the same moment his hand had caught her hip, just a brief touch as they passed through the doors, but it was enough to make her wish, for once, he'd shove them both into a dark corner and let her feel his hand on her cheek where Aizen's fingers had grazed her. Just enough to erase the former shinigami captain's touch from her skin.

"I don't know if it's something else he's doing or just being around you," he said as they continued down the sterile, doorless corridor of gray walls, "but something is wearing on him faster."

She looked to him automatically, keeping her steps astride his longer ones. "Me?"

"The Sazyels never finished scrubbing the shinigami off you."

He didn't look at her and her attention went to the winding hall before them where other sounds were coming.

"The Hyogoku remnants fights whatever shinigami influence he has left," he said, this time leaning slightly to her ear as he spoke. "He's got whatever that damn thing was plus shinigami and Hollow all rolled up in him and they're always warring. He wants them all, Orihime, every advantage each can offer, but it can't be done. Even the Szayels know that. He can't have it all."

They turned the corner and the nose from ahead, voices and shouts coupled with the Wailing, grew louder.

"Being around you drains him," he added, hearing the catch in her breath. This time his hand cupped behind hers, a limited contact that propelled her slowing steps into a faster pace again. "He can't have it all. No one can have it all."

She nodded, glancing at him and then ahead as a sudden shout came from the arena ahead.

A moment later the hall dissolved into the arena Orihime had seen the first day she'd returned to Las Noches, but this time they had accessed it by a different approach. Aizen stood at the balcony, looking down at the three dozen Arrancar in the midst of a melee of swords and screams. The partitions were anchored away to allow the most of the floor space, enabling a free-for-all of Arrancar hell.

The painful screams and soul-thirsty oaths echoed up to the balcony as the Arrancar battles below left wounded and dismembered forms against the walls. Orihime edged up to the balcony railing as Grimmjow prod her just to Aizen's elbow.

"Not much to work with, I agree," Aizen told them, not turning around, "but they are the raw materials to absorb our latest research, Orihime."

She only nodded, words failing her as she got a better look at him from the side. It was no longer merely the whites of his eyes now, but the pigment that was more orb-like than any semblance of human, black, nearly reptilian eyes that belonged to something cold-blooded.

He seemed unaware of the change, but when Orihime recoiled with a slight whimper as he glanced to her, he averted his glance, again looking to the scream-filled arena below.

Orihime felt Grimmjow's hand at the small of her back, sliding up to between her shoulder blades to brace her both physically and mentally.

"Y-yes, Aizen-sama," she said, not really agreeing with him.

His hands tightened on the rail before him, knuckles whitening in the hard clutch. He looked back to them, and this time only the dark in his eyes she'd seen before remained, but his face was gaunt, almost pale.

He looked from her to Grimmjow. "Weed out the weeds, Grimmjow, and leave the top ten for our next bout," he said. "In three days I want only the best ten. I want them injured, but nothing our sister cannot recover. Let them know that they are chosen, by me, because I see their promise as elite."

Grimmjow's hand slipped from Orihime's back as he nodded to the battles below. "Have you addressed them yet?"

"Yes."

Grimmjow stepped to the rail, eclipsing most of Orihime's view of the violence below, for which she was glad.

For a moment he watched, one hand at his katana hilt. "You've got them all there?" He looked to Aizen. "The cuts we made yesterday, they're thrown in, too?"

Before he could be answered, a shout came from below and Orihime took a tentative step closer to his side.

At the far end of the exhibition arena the commons pavilion was adjoined by a series of three wide doorways to the outer courtyard. Another roar burst from one of them, and then the wide, thick metal door was wrenched off.

A large human-appearing Arrancar stepped through, tossing the door to one side as his muscular form filled the doorway. On one shoulder were slung two smaller bodies, and as he advanced into the now-stilled activity of the battle arena, the observers from above could better see him.

He stopped in the center of the arena, snarling at the surrounding Arrancar recruits that were now fringing at the walls. He looked up at the rail where the three stood, and then heaved the slain bodies of Lene and Santrous to the floor.

Aizen smiled down at the figure. "Welcome, brother! You're invited to join us if you can meet our standards!"

Orihime looked to Aizen and then to Grimmjow as the Espada's hand pulled her gently away from the rail.

"Who are you that I'd want to be your brother?" the Arrancar called back.

Orihime peeked around Grimmjow's shoulder to the new recruit.

Even from her distance, she could see the figure was dressed in dark pants and a fur mantle chained across his chest. Above it a line of bone remnants marked his collarbones, matching the few left at one temple that appeared to be either exposed skull or part of his Hollow's mask.

"I offer you the only position worthy of the best warriors," Aizen told him, the attempt at control in his voice obvious to both Grimmjow and Orihime. He cleared his throat, his stare on the new recruit looking up to them. "We only accept the strongest here. Clear the floor," he told the others below, "except for our newest brother."

There was no mistaking the order, and within seconds the dozens of Arrancar recruits that had been intent on earning their place in the next round were sitting around the perimeter.

Aizen turned to Grimmjow. "Test him now. I want to know if he's anywhere near Vasto Lorde material," he said lowly, eyes darkening but not merging into deadness as before. "Take him just short of his limits, but no damage our sister cannot reverse."

Grimmjow's jaw tightened. He knew better than Aizen what those limits were, and how high they _actually_ were, but he nodded. "I know what you want. You want him broken?"

Aizen seemed to consider this, attention shifting to Orihime momentarily before going to the arena below. "No. Not this time."

Orihime missed Grimmjow's proximity as he went below to confront the new recruit in the arena. She wasn't sure what she sensed with Aizen, something less than she had at other times throughout her history with him, but something other, more sinister that lurked beneath his façade of gentility. It was also something that he didn't appear to completely harness. It made her think of the wild animal and un-evolved Hollows he'd spoken of the day before.

She looked to him. For a moment she watched covertly as he studied the arena below, not daring to think too loudly that whatever was behind his eyes was vying for either control over him or his destruction. Her attention dropped to the arena before he found her observation.

She saw Grimmjow glance up to them as he entered the arena carrying a sword. He gave the slightest of nods, and then turned to the new recruit that watched him warily. He tossed him the long-handled katana and drew his own sword. The newcomer caught it easily, taking a moment to judge its weight in his large grip. He sized up Grimmjow.

"I would like to see a demonstration of your abilities," Aizen called down to the two figures, eyes on the newest arrival.

"My name is Artis!" he shouted back.

Orihime heard Grimmjow say something to him, and then launched into an attack meant to cleave Artis at the shoulder. Artis bellowed back, and then began an exchange of blades that made Orihime forget to breathe.

Grimmjow broke a hard blow to Artis' head, which was blocked and returned with equal force. He doubled his grip and sent Grimmjow back several steps with a series of ungainly hacks that were met, one landing partly on the Espada's upper arm.

Grimmjow roared in return and followed with a volley of powerful blows that drove Artis into the recruits sitting against the opposite wall, bringing a scream from him as a backslash opened his shoulder above the mantle.

Orihime winced as the battle reversed, with Grimmjow losing ground in a calculated defense. A small cry escaped her as Artis' blade rang off Grimmjow's, the clang sharp in the arena that had fallen quiet.

"Very good," Aizen murmured, his voice nearer than Orihime expected it to be. She glanced to him, finding him too close, realizing his comment was not about the fight below. "I see you've warmed to the idea of your brothers here. You should care about their welfare."

She swallowed slowly, looking to each of his black-shot eyes that seemed to see deeper into her thoughts than she wanted.

She didn't speak, not knowing what to say, but not daring to utter the truth. Her gaze dropped to where Grimmjow was beating Artis to the far wall with a barrage of mighty blows that would have taxed a number of rivals. She tried to relax her tight clench on the rail, eyes fastened on the Espada's swift movements that she'd never before watched as she did now.

He was no different, not physically, she knew; Grimmjow had always been strong, cuttingly quick, deadly in combat and astute in battle.

But now her mind was aligned differently, her thoughts allowed to drift into fascination as never before, not as when he'd always been battling her friends.

Her Ichigo.

No, not her Ichigo, she decided, modesty reining in the admiration her eyes followed with painstaking detail on the Espada below.

Her _friends_.

She forced down the small smile that threatened her lips as Grimmjow's blade slashed a broad stroke across Artis' chest.

A bellow erupted from Artis, and with a swift backhand of his empty hand, he let fly a fully charged cero that shot toward Grimmjow.

Grimmjow deflected most of it with his sword blade, but it sent a burn across his upper arm below the earlier gash.

Aizen leaned on at the rail. "Enough!"

Grimmjow heard him in time, but let loose an answering cero that scorched a hole below Artis' left ribs.

He howled in pain, and then dropped to his knees as Grimmjow's sword tip etched into his chest, just adequate to open the skin.

"Enough!" Aizen ordered, glare now on Grimmjow.

Orihime saw Grimmjow's blade ease back.

"Very good," Aizen said loudly. "Find a place in the preliminary recovery room for our new brother, Grimmjow, and then you can finish personally challenging down the best dozen of these other recruits."

Orihime watched Grimmjow glance to her, Artis still on his knees, one hand on his scorched side, the other tight on the katana hilt on the floor.

Aizen turned to her. "Come with me, Orihime."

For a moment longer her gaze stayed on Grimmjow below, her mind estimating how many more fights he had before he would leave the arena. Some of the recruits began to rise as Grimmjow stepped away from Artis.

"Come along, Orihime," Aizen said.

She flinched, moving from the balcony as he reached for her shoulder. She forced her eyes from Grimmjow.

Aizen didn't speak until they had left the hall leading to the arena, climbing the gently sloping floor until the Wailing began to fade.

A few times Orihime heard shouts echoing to them from the arena they had left, none of them from the Espada; she'd left Grimmjow with a horde of foes, she knew.

She frowned at the floor, conscious of Aizen's sleeve occasionally touching hers at her side as they walked.

"You've earned a reprieve from your duties today," he said, his voice low and fully controlled. "Let's see about a proper reward for your contribution."

She felt a little nauseated at the prospect of anything Aizen would consider a fitting reward for her role in Szayel One's progress in the laboratories, but she nodded. "Thank you, Aizen-sama."

She chanced a glance up to him, seeing the dark seep into the whites of his eyes, but progress no further this time. They passed down a few more halls, her eyes searching the tiles for telltale markings, cracks or dents, but there were none.

A sinking feeling began in her stomach, partly because she wanted to know more about Grimmjow's injuries, and partly for her own immediate future.

A moment later he stopped before a door, the only door in the long, semi-lit hall, and pushed it open. Before she could even see inside, a warm, moist swell of air drifted out to meet Orihime. It was thick, fragrant with smells she hadn't enjoyed in a month, settling on her skin in delicious textures both warm and damp.

"Go in."

She did, the earthy scents of humidity and soil calling at her senses. Inside the large room it was brightly lit, but crowded with raised beds and ceramic pots of shrubby plants in an array of color and enticing smells of vegetables and fruit. She wanted to breathe it all in hastily, but didn't, remembering her company and his self-inflicted bend toward decorum.

"Food is a necessity few need here," Aizen said, leading them between the cobble paths of bordered garden plants and containers of tall, lush plants in various sizes, most heavily laden with fruit and vegetables. "The garden also serves as a sensory outlet that even fewer here need. I know you've been denied some of the benefits of your former life, Orihime; perhaps this can provide a remedy for that."

Her steps slowed as she trailed him, eyes moving over the leafy plants and frilly flowers that surrounded her, a smile curving her lips at the welcome of moisture-rich air around her.

Aizen watched her hand gently graze a plant, fingers curling at the touch of the leaf that seemed to reach also for her.

She looked to the plant, pulling her hand away when she caught his attention on her.

"Go ahead, Orihime," he said, nodding, eyes brimming with black. "That's why I brought you here."

She nodded, looking back to the plant heavy with blackberries. She'd handled berries, any number of varieties at the catering shop, but this time her interest was focused on them for a different reason. The shiny black berries were soft, fragile to her fingers, full and plump, begging to be eaten.

Aizen seemed to think so, too. "Take them. You're free to eat them, Orihime."

She didn't want to look at him, or even eat the berries, not at his invitation. She carefully plucked a berry, watchful of the thorns lacing the thin branches of the bush. "Thank you."

As she looked down at the large berry in her hand, she saw his hand nearest her clench into a fist. She didn't look to his face, but she could feel it, feel the thickening of pressure around him that seemed to envelop him, an invisible cloak that she couldn't see but feel.

"I'll leave this to you," she heard him say.

"Oh, good! A visitor!"

It was Szayel's voice, a shriller tone of it that jerked Orihime's mind from the odd eclipse in Aizen's manner and the blackberry she held. She looked up to see a Szayel making his way through the path, one prim hand moving aside the plants hanging before him.

He smiled widely, his lab coat somehow looking at home in the garden, the edges of it dusted with black dirt. "We have so few visitors," he said, looking to Aizen. "You finally brought her around. Oh, thank you, Aizen-sama!"

Orihime looked to Aizen with shock, first because of the new Szayel and also because of the undeniable darkness slipping through his soul and eyes.

"Orihime, this is Szayel Three, our resident horticulturist," Aizen introduced, nodding slightly. "Szayel Three, this is your sister, Orihime."

"Oh, I am delighted," he said too brightly, nodding as she made a slight bow. "I have heard from the kitchen that you were here. How very fascinating."

"You'll show her around, let her stay as long as she likes," Aizen said, looking at Orihime through the dark encroaching in his eyes, noting her attention flick over his face. "I'll send Grimmjow to collect her later." He turned to the peach tree that hung a branch at his shoulder. He plucked a reddish-yellow peach from it and handed it to her. "Be sure to take anything you want from here, Orihime. I plan to bring you here in the future, if all goes well in the laboratory for us."

She took the fuzzy-skinned fruit, unwilling to hold something Aizen had so recently touched, but fearing not to accept it. "Thank you, Aizen-sama."

He nodded and said to Szayel Three, "Show her around."

"Oh, yes," Three said, gesturing an arm down the cobble path behind him. "Where shall we start, sister?"

Over the next hour Orihime found Szayel Three's exuberance for all things vegetable both inviting and a little alarming. There was no mistaking the garden for anything but a much needed change from her stark room and the laboratory, but finding an almost friendly chatter coming out of anyone looking like Szayel was unnerving.

He showed her nearly every plant in the garden, from the thorny berry bushes to summer squash to juicy tomatoes and slender, purple eggplants to a variety of stone fruits on dwarf trees. Szayel Three seemed equally proud of each of them, taking a moment to explain every plant's specific care and needs, letting her pick as much as she desired.

Orihime desired none of them, the peach still warming in her hand as she looked for an opportunity to set it down out of sight when Three wasn't watching. There was no opportune moment, she realized, and she also became aware of Aizen still in the garden house.

She saw him through the tall okra plants bearing loads of purplish pods and large leaves that hung in the pathway. He watched her from the door, the obscured view making it impossible to see him clearly, one hand resting on the katana at his side.

She followed Three, listening to him ramble on. They'd just found a raised bed of greens near a row of potted dewberries when she heard the door near Aizen open. She looked there covertly.

Aizen was gone and Grimmjow was making his way unceremoniously through a cobble path – barely on the path – to where she stood with Three.

He met them, glancing from her to the researcher and then back. "You're alone with him?"

She nodded, eyes rising from the singed and sliced sleeve of his arm to his face. "Aizen-sama was here, too."

"He's gone." Grimmjow looked to Three. "Are you done with your tour?"

Three smiled wide, gesturing to the half acre of garden yet to be described in detail. "Merely started, Jaegerjaquez-san. We could spend days in here and never tire —"

"Maybe another day then." Grimmjow scowled at the peach she still held in one hand, her other arm laden with assorted vegetables and fruit. "Grab what you want to eat now and the rest will be sent on to the kitchen. You've a couple free days."

Orihime smiled before she could stop herself, reading the look in his eyes without effort. She looked to Szayel.

"Yes, I understand. So much for the first visit," he said, missing several cues. "It's overwhelming, I understand." He made a graceful wave to an unseen Drone. "Bring a few receptacles for my sister. You'll take her produce to the kitchen for later use."

Orihime saw a longsuffering look cross Grimmjow's face, but he said nothing.

Ten minutes later they were in the halls, following an indeterminate maze through the complex's confusing corridors. Grimmjow offered little conversation and Orihime didn't inquire much. She was happy to be rid of the peach, which she'd sent on ahead, keeping only some of the berries and plums in a smaller basket Szayel Three had supplied. She knew she was supposed to be flattered, but instead she found herself repulsed at the idea of eating anything Aizen had touched.

Grimmjow stopped them at a door becoming familiar to her, and her gaze went to the floor, finding the welcome crack in the tile she expected.

"Stay composed," he said as he opened the door, seeing the smile winning over her face as they turned their backs to the smoky dome on the wall.

She stepped in before him, briefly closing her eyes at the familiar atmosphere rushing her in his dimly lit quarters as he closed the door behind them. The familiar pressure seeped into her skin, settling in her bones where she wanted to harbor it in her marrow, knowing its imprint as well as she knew when it was missing.

She felt Grimmjow's lips on the back of neck, his hand moving her hair just enough to expose her slender neck. "Eat while I check into something."

He ushered her up the platform to where his bed had been hastily made, the window running along the upper portion of the wall allowing the muted moonlight to filter in. She didn't realize the day had slipped away so quickly.

"Sit down."

Orihime sat at the edge of the bed, the bowl cradled in her lap as her hand absently moved to the first few pink-red berries it found.

He went to the wall and looked out the window, eyes on the darkening exterior, watching for a long moment the desert beyond the crumpling Las Noches walls. "What did he want with you?"

She looked to the jagged white edges of his sleeve. "I don't know. He showed me the garden, and, oh, I met Szayel Three. Are there more than four?"

"Not anymore."

"He's so unlike the other three. Do you want a berry?" He shook his head and she let her other hand pick at a small plum. She took a bite, finding the taste sweet and thick. She took a bigger bite.

"He'll be absent for a few days." He looked to her. "You're wearing on him. He can't keep up every entity wanting supreme control. He loses quicker than ever before."

"That's good?" She certainly thought it was.

He nodded, grinning. "Very good."

She finished the plum and turned the raspberries in her other hand, seeing his arm move better into her view. "You've been healed?"

He looked back to the window, focusing on a slope darkening in the distance. "Mostly. Patchwork, but it's enough."

She quickly ate the berries and set the bowl to one side on the bed. "Let me finish." She swiftly took off her shoes and pulled her legs onto the bed, curling them beside her, one hand resting on the spot next to her. "I can –"

"He wants all of your healing to be done in the recovery room, Orihime." He nodded, sitting beside her, setting the bowl of fruit on the stand by the bedstead. "It doesn't need mending."

Her eyes went to the slit white material of his jacket as she folded her legs closer, sitting straighter, her hand moving tentatively to the sleeve. "The burn is nearly gone," she said, brushing the singed edges away from his skin beneath. The skin was slightly discolored but smooth, the laceration near it closed.

He leaned closer, watching her eyes flick to his. "It's fine."

She nodded, focused on the mask a few inches from her, the deep-set teeth aligned to his jaw. She moved, inching forward on her knees until her right rested against his hip. She put a tentative hand to the bone, two fingertips at the lower edge, ready to draw them back if the action was met with disapproval. "Can you feel that?"

He grinned slightly. "Just pressure."

Her fingers traced the bottom edge of bone, its smoothness still a surprise to her. Her gaze went to his hand as it followed up her knee, pushing her white coat back past her hip as his other hand circled her waist, drawing her near until she had to edge her left knee over his thigh.

"Maybe he won't know," she said, looking to the hole in his sleeve. "If he's gone."

"Don't worry about it, Orihime."

She let her weight cover his leg, not quite astride, but close. Her fingers glided to the back edge of his mask, pausing for a few seconds to his neck, the skin beneath them taut at his collar, slipping under the material just enough to edge it from his shoulder a few inches.

He didn't see much of the blush blooming over her cheeks in the faint light, didn't care that her fingers were nervous on his shoulders as she chanced to let her other had mirror the movements of her first. Grimmjow hadn't expected a touch as light as hers on him, more feather-like than fingertips, to have an affect on him, but they did.

She slowly pushed the black collar back, her eyes on his broad shoulders she knew well. Her fingers splayed wide to cover as much as she could, eager for touch of the finely muscled form his enemies also knew well, for other reasons.

He watched her hands push the jacket as far as the material allowed, and then locked her close to him, arms engulfing her slight startle as his lips pressed to hers. Her arms came automatically around his neck, rising on both knees as his large hands covered nearly all of her back.

For a long moment she remained there, forgetting to breathe as his lips moved from her mouth to her eyes in turn, his hand embedding in her hair at the back of her neck, gently pulling head her back to kiss below her chin, following it with soft touches along her throat until she had to gasp a swallow.

He let her ease away, watching her face drop forward to see him. He put one hand to the side of her head, and she looked quickly to the hairpin in his fingers.

Her eyes shot to him, body tensing in the confines of his embrace as he set the clip on the stand by the bowl of fruit. "Stop panicking."

She nodded, relaxing slightly as he removed the other hairpin. She watched him place it beside the first on the stand. For a guilty moment she looked at the pins, and then down to her top as Grimmjow's hand moved to the closure at her chest.

She wasn't sure how he'd done it so deftly, as he had at other times, with her other clothing, but the jacket-top was removed, and then her loose pants, leaving her sitting to his side in her panties, knees drawn to her bare chest as he stood to remove his own clothing.

With chagrin, Orihime realized she'd wanted to do that earlier, but hadn't the nerve or finesse to shrug it off of him. He settled beside her on his knees, pulling one of her legs to his side, hand at the back of her knee, drawing the crook out of it until the moonlight played across her ample breasts.

She held her breath as his hand went there, palm moving over the outer edge of one of her breasts, his hard skin a striking contrast to the soft flesh beneath, making her sit straighter as he circled slowly under to her ribs and then to her back. She looked up as his lips kissed her eye, moving to her cheek, kissing fully across her mouth as she tried to follow.

She felt herself lower to the bed and her panties were shed, his other arm guiding her down as her frailer arms slipped around him, conscious of the point of his erection edge at the joint of her inner thigh. Her arms tightened around him, pulling him closer as he pushed her deeper into the thick mattress, kissing her throat until she didn't want to breathe. The toned muscles beneath her hands bunched, lips pressing to hers as she let her legs move around him better, shuddering a raged breath as his length rubbed at the sensitive outer perimeter of entry.

It wasn't his heartbeat against her breasts she felt; she knew that, but the fast, forceful beats of her own seemed far too strong to be merely hers alone. Every sense in her body anticipated his lips on her skin as they traveled from her throat to her breasts, and then back to her mouth.

He kissed her lips slowly, feeling her hot breath in short exhales as her heartbeat echoed against his chest. He let both arms surround her, feeling her fingernails poise on his shoulders as he pushed into her. A longer moan came from her, a sound of pleasure that matched her legs tightening around him. He slowly moved within her, savoring the mixture of warm and moist with the taste of berries in her mouth, the scent of what he could only describe as eagerness in her breath on him. She moved with him, hips rising to his, the soles of her feet urging as they slid over his calves at intervals.

Orihime let time and circumstance fall away, welcoming the steady, powerful motion he sent through her. A mind-numbing swell rose deep in her, bringing his name to her lips. Her arms locked around him, anticipating each stroke he made, surreal ripples of delight calling a response from him as her name grew in her exhale.

The blinding climax broke within her, bringing a groan that dug every fingernail into his back, matched by his own response. She clung there, hearing and feeling her heartbeat enough for both of them amid the warm damp covering their anchored state. She didn't mean to unlock her arms from him, but suddenly exhausted, they fell slack, weak as he laid on her and kissed her wet neck, feeling her pulse in her flesh.

Orihime felt as if her pulse was everywhere in her body at once, a pounding that matched her oxygen deprived panting as his lips returned to hers and kissed forcefully with the last of her strength. She kissed him back, slowly as he lingered, opening her eyes as he took one arm from around her.

Grimmjow brushed a damp strand of hair from her face, his eyes a dark blue in the dim light as they studied her.

"You're beautiful, Orihime," he said after a moment.

She didn't have the energy to blush, but a soft smile moved her lips.

Her arms went back around him as his kiss moved to her throat, touching along her collarbones until he looked back to her. He rested on one elbow near her head, two fingers moving over her eye, watching her blink. "I can't love you," he said lowly, frowning as he anticipated her reaction. "You know that."

For a moment she couldn't speak. She swallowed, her breath halting as his fingers grazed over her forehead. "I know. It's, that's ... I know."

She could see the sharpness glint his eyes as he looked to her forehead as his hand moved a strand of hair.

"But it's close," he added, gaze dropping to her eyes. "All I'm capable of."

She thought she'd heard wrong. She blinked twice, waiting for him to retract the words.

Instead he pulled out of her and lay down beside her, pulling her hip to settle her closer. She let herself conform to his side, her knee draped over his thigh as her mind swarmed with half-formed thoughts.

He leaned over her and wrangled the blanket over them that had been pushed away. He watched her arm cross his chest, feeling her fingers rest at his side, small caresses that matched the movements her toes were making at his shin.

He looked down as her face tilted to see him better.

"Close enough," she said in a voice barely audible.

He nodded, wishing he could say the words he knew to say and have them be true. To be possible.

"Close enough for me, Grimmjow," she said, sighing against his chest as her cheek rested there.

He wasn't sure she meant it, but if it was enough for her, at the moment, then it was enough.

* * *

**Authors' Note:** _Thank you for reading, and for all the reviews!_


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